Sculptor's Studio

Louis Moeller

probably 1880s · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

The many late nineteenth-century representations of studios reflected an increase in artists’ self-esteem and in patrons’ curiosity about their lives. American sculptors of the period collected prints, photographs, statuettes, and plaster casts for reference in making their own works. The unidentified sculptor whose studio Moeller portrayed here had gathered, among other objects, casts after the Assyrian relief of a dying lioness from Ashurbanipal’s palace (on the back wall) and a section of the north frieze of the Parthenon (above the door). His equipment, including wooden sawhorses and the crude tabletop they would have supported, is piled against the walls.

Artist

Louis Moeller

Date

probably 1880s

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Purchase, The Bertram F. and Susie Brummer Foundation Inc. Gift, 1967