La Jeunesse

Herbert Adams

ca. 1894; carved ca. 1899–1900 · Applewood, marble, paste jewels, and twisted wire · The American Wing

Adams was one of only a handful of Americans who experimented around the turn of the century with polychromy and the use of multiple materials in a single work. "La Jeunesse," an allegory of youth, makes conscious allusion to Italian Renaissance art, showcasing Adams’s Parisian academic training and cosmopolitanism. The sculptor’s decorative heads, with their synthesis of European tradition and American modernity, drew comparisons to contemporaneous paintings of idealized female subjects.

Artist

Herbert Adams

Date

ca. 1894; carved ca. 1899–1900

Medium

Applewood, marble, paste jewels, and twisted wire

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1911