Henry Kirke Brown (1814-1886)

Henry Kirke Brown is best known for his equestrian statue of George Washington of 1856 in Union Square, New York. In 1852, he completed profile portraits of three American founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. An example of the Franklin medallion in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is stamped with the foundry mark of the Ames Manufacturing Company, Chicopee, Massachusetts. An unidentified number of unmarked examples were also cast, including the present work.