Description: Marble bust of John C. Calhoun, attributed to Clark Mills (Charleston and New York, 1810-1883)
H30" W19" D9 1/2"
Provenance: Descended through the Smythe family to present heir
Literature: Rutledge, Anna Wells. TRANSACTION OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: ARTIST IN THE LIFE OF CHARLESTON THROUGH COLONY AND STATE FROM RESTORATION TO RECONSTRUCTION. APS, 1949 p. 237. Clark Mills's works discussed.
Other Notes: This marble bust of John C. Calhoun has descended through the Smythe family of Charleston, South Carolina to the current heir. The Smythe family is also known to have in its collection other busts executed by such prominent sculptors as Hiram Powers.
John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was born in the Abbeville district of South Carolina. Calhoun entered Yale and graduated with distinction in the class of 1804. As a United States political leader he was a Congressman, Secretary of War, seventh Vice President (1825 - 1832), serving under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, a Senator and Secretary of State of the United States.
Clark Mills (1810-1883) operated a studio in Charleston South Carolina from 1839 to 1848 at 51 Broad St. It is here that he executed marble and plaster busts of many prominent South Carolinians.
Clark Mills was the first American sculptor who did not study abroad and the first to cast his own bronzes. Also, he was the first sculptor of an equestrian figure to be erected in the United States. Mills's first major commission came in 1848 from the Jackson Monument Committee for a statue of Andrew Jackson, unveiled in 1853, in Lafayette Square, Washington D.C. His other commissions include a bronze of George Washington erected in Washington Circle, Washington D.C.