Preparedness

Paul Wayland Bartlett

1915–16, cast 1916 · Bronze · The American Wing

Bartlett was said to have begun this statuette of an American eagle the day after the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915. The artist was an advocate of the preparedness movement, in which increasing numbers of Americans favored military preparation for World War I. “Preparedness”, modeled by early 1916, is the most overt proclamation among Bartlett’s works of his sympathies with the Allied cause. The stately, but loosely modeled bird is perched atop a rounded mass with a shield in front and a banner imprinted “Preparedness.” By April 1916, Bartlett had received a number of orders for bronze replicas. Casts were produced both in Newark, New Jersey, as in the case of the Metropolitan’s bronze, and in Paris.

Artist

Paul Wayland Bartlett

Date

1915–16, cast 1916

Medium

Bronze

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of Thomas Henry Russell and Frederic Newlin Price, 1925