Maria Weston Chapman

Edmonia Lewis
American, 1844-1907
Maria Weston Chapman
1865
Plaster

Maria Weston Chapman (1806-1885) was an abolitionist who was born in Weymouth and lived there much of her life. Chapman was one of the founders of the Boston Female Antislavery Society. The many essays, pamphlets, and poems she wrote were influential in encouraging women to join the abolitionist cause. Chapman was the chief assistant of William Lloyd Garrison, the noted abolitionist and journalist who published the influential antislavery publication The Liberator.

It was likely through William Lloyd Garrison that Chapman and Edmonia Lewis met. Lewis was a sculptor of African American and Ojibwa (Chippewa) heritage who worked in Boston and Rome. Her Neoclassical sculptures received international acclaim during her lifetime. This portrait bust of Maria Weston Chapman is thought to be Lewis’s earliest known sculpture. Chapman displayed this portrait bust in her drawing room along with another of Lewis’s works, a portrait bust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Colonel Shaw was killed in 1863 at Fort Wagner as he led the 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of African American soldiers in the Union Army.

Sources

Chambers, Lee V. The Weston Sisters: An American Abolitionist Family. University of North Carolina Press, 2014.

"Edmonia Lewis." Britannica Library, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1 October 2013. https://library.eb.com/levels/referencecenter/article/Edmonia-Lewis/2985. Accessed 30 November 2020.

“Edmonia Lewis.” Smithsonian American Art Museum. https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edmonia-lewis-2914. Accessed 4 December 2020.

Gollin, Rita K. Annie Adams Fields: Woman of Letters. University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.

"Robert Gould Shaw." Britannica Library, Encyclopædia Britannica, 23 August 2019. https://library.eb.com/levels/referencecenter/article/Robert-Gould-Shaw/.... Accessed 15 December 2020.