Edward R. Thaxter

Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1998, lot 118;

Christie's New York, 18 November 2014, lot 144

Edward R. Thaxter was a young and promising American sculptor, originating from Maine and residing in Boston. In 1878, Thaxter travelled to Italy and established his workshop in Florence. He tragically died at the young age of 27 due to thyroid fever in Naples. His sculpture of a Love's First Dream was his last completed work and is among his most important sculptures. The original and monumental plaster model was about 3m high. His mother commissioned a half-sized marble version of the model after her son's passing which was subsequently exhibited across the US after which several marble copies were produced posthumously. In 1916, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Connecticut acquired a marble version of the graceful model.

RELATED LITERATURE

'American Art Chronicle,' in The American Art Review 2, no. 10, 1881, p.175; https://www.thewadsworth.org/thaxter/, 22/11/2023