Daniel Webster

John Adams Jackson
American, 1825-1879
Daniel Webster
1853
Marble

Noted American sculptor John Adams Jackson was born in Bath, Maine. In 1849, Jackson and Jane M. Healey of Weymouth married. They lived in Weymouth briefly, then moved to Boston, where Jackson began his training as a sculptor. This portrait bust of Daniel Webster is Jackson’s earliest known work in marble. Jackson paid for the materials himself. The sculpture’s positive public reception was a factor in Jackson’s decision to further his artistic training in Florence, Italy. 

Among Jackson’s notable large-scale works is the Soldiers’ Monument in Lynn, Massachusetts. Jackson was also well-known for portrait busts, many of which depict notable 19th century figures, such as this one of American orator, politician, and lawyer Daniel Webster. Webster served as a U.S. Congressman (1813-17, 1823-27), a U.S. Senator (1827–41, 1845–50), and U.S. Secretary of State (1841-43, 1850-52). Although Webster was born in New Hampshire, towards the end of his life he had a farm in nearby Marshfield and is buried there in Winslow Cemetery.

Jane M. Healey Jackson was instrumental in promoting her husband’s art. She held many social events that helped secure commissions for the portrait busts that comprised much of Jackson’s work. In one of her letters to a friend regarding the recent purchase of one of her husband’s pieces, she wrote “I was glad to have some of John’s work go so near to Weymouth.” In light of this, it seems very fitting that the portrait bust that launched her husband’s career is displayed in Weymouth at Tufts Library.
 

Sources

Cressey, Frank B. “Art and Artists in Weymouth and Braintree.” Weymouth Gazette and Transcript, 17 April 1908, page 4.

"Daniel Webster." Britannica Library, Encyclopædia Britannica, 15 November 2017. https://library.eb.com/levels/referencecenter/article/Daniel-Webster/76397. Accessed 1 December 2020.

“The History.” The Daniel Webster Estate, https://thedanielwebsterestate.org/daniel-webster-history/. Accessed 19 January 2021.

John F. McGuigan, Jr. “A Maine Sculptor in Florence: John Adams Jackson, 1825–1879.” Imagines, Il Magazine delle Gallerie degli Uffizi, vol. 5 (forthcoming 2021).

Musacchio, Jacqueline Marie. “Jane M. Healey Jackson, a Sculptor’s Wife Abroad.” Florence, Berlin, and Beyond: Late Nineteenth-Century Art Markets and Their Social Networks, edited by L. Catterson, Leiden, 2020, pages 367-420.