HENRY MERWIN SHRADY (1871-1922)

At the encouragement of jeweler and silversmith Theodore Starr, Henry Merwin Shrady produced several small bronzes, including The Empty Saddle, for sale at Starr's prime Fifth Avenue store in New York. This exposure proved instrumental to Shrady's success, leading to sales, exhibition invitations and more. Patricia Janis Broder writes, "A representative of a committee sponsoring a competition for an equestrian statue of Washington at Valley Forge saw The Empty Saddle in a Fifth Avenue store window. He invited Shrady to enter the competition. Shrady, submitting only two additional plaster models, won the contest." (Bronzes of the American West, New York, 1974, p. 241) As a result, Shrady's monumental statue of Washington was installed on the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza in Brooklyn, New York, where it still stands today.