At the Threshold

Edith Woodman Burroughs

1912; carved 1919–20 · Limestone, tinted · The American Wing

The smooth, simplified treatment of this lifesize adolescent female on the verge of womanhood was inspired by Burroughs’s 1909 trip to Paris, where she admired the sculpture of modernist artist Aristide Maillol. The original tinted plaster version of "At the Threshold" was exhibited widely, including at the Berlin Photographic Company in New York, where Burroughs had her first solo exhibition in 1915, just a year before her death. In 1918 it was included in a long-term exhibition of American sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum. The following year the Metropolitan and the sculptor’s widower Bryson Burroughs, then its curator of paintings, arranged to have “At the Threshold” carved in limestone and tinted to resemble the original plaster figure.

Artist

Edith Woodman Burroughs

Date

1912; carved 1919–20

Medium

Limestone, tinted

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Amelia B. Lazarus Fund, 1920