Crawford, Thomas

Thomas Crawford, (born March 22, 1814, New York, New York, U.S.—died October 10, 1857, London, England), Neoclassical sculptor best known for his colossal Statue of Freedom, which was posthumously cast and hoisted atop the dome of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., amid great festivities in 1863.

Crawford, Thomas: Statue of Freedom

Crawford studied drawing at the National Academy of Design and trained as a stonecutter in New York City. A few years later, in 1835, he went to Rome, where he received some instruction from the Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. He established a studio there and remained in Rome for the rest of his life. He did, however, maintain ties to the United States and even enjoyed success with a solo exhibition of his work at the Boston Atheneum in 1844. While abroad he was commissioned in 1854 to design a statue for the U.S. Capitol dome and major components for the Senate building, including the 80-foot- (24.4-metre-) long pediment sculpture Progress of Civilization and the pediment sculpture Justice and History located above the Senate building’s bronze doors, which he also designed. Crawford had completed his plaster model for the 19.5-foot- (5.9-metre-) tall Statue of Freedom sculpture when he died suddenly at age 43. The model, which was shipped by boat in five pieces from Rome to Washington, D.C., was finally cast in bronze in 1862, and, weighing 15,000 pounds (6,800 kg), was installed in pieces atop the Capitol dome in 1863.

At the time of his death his reputation rivaled that of Hiram Powers and Horatio Greenough as a leading American sculptor. The novelist F. Marion Crawford was his son.