February 2021

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XVIII, Number 2                                                      February 1, 2021

“The study of the past is a constantly evolving, never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner

 

THE CAPITOL ROTUNDA: I gave a Zoom talk two weeks ago on Saving Monticello. As I always do when I introduce Uriah Levy in my talks, I mentioned that when he bought Monticello in 1834, Levy—a fifth generation Jewish-American born in 1792 in Philadelphia—was a U.S. Navy lieutenant and an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson.

We know this because Levy, on his own, in 1832 commissioned a full-length statue of Jefferson and the following year donated it to the people of the United States.

During the talk I said—as I always do—that the statue is displayed in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol (above) in Washington. Those words took on a new meaning as I said them less that two weeks after the horrific events that took place January 6 in the Capitol, including the shocking, violent acts in the august Rotunda.

I paused, thought about what happened, and went on with the talk, diving back to the 19^th century to tell the tale of Uriah Levy and the only statue in the Rotunda donated by a private citizen. It’s a tale I tell in depth in Saving Monticello, and have referenced several times in this newsletter over the years. It’s worth telling in brief again now.

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The statue story began in earnest in the fall of 1832, when U.S. Navy Lt. Uriah P. Levy was enjoying some R&R in Paris.

Levy, who would purchase Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in two years, came to Paris to honor the nation’s third president, whom the patriotic Navy officer admired particularly for his dedication to religious freedom.

Jefferson felt strongly about that cause, as evidenced by the groundbreaking 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty, which he wrote and which James Madison shepherded through the Virginia General Assembly while Jefferson served as U.S. minister (ambassador) to France.

That landmark document (above) contained the seeds of the Freedom of Religion component of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which Madison wrote based on Jefferson’s strongly held beliefs on the subject.

Uriah Levy was familiar with the work of the illustrious French sculptor Pierre-Jean David d’Angers (1788-1856) and asked him to create a full-scale bronze of Jefferson. As I wrote in Saving Monticello, his many commissions for statues, portraits, busts, and medallions came from patrons throughout the world. Many famous and wealthy people sat for David, who was renowned for his bas-relief sculptures. Much of his work—including a model of the Jefferson statue—is on display today in the galerie David d’Angers in France.

In Paris in the fall of 1832, Levy paid a visit to the 75-year-old Lafayette, who had bonded with Thomas Jefferson during the Revolutionary War. Lafayette, in retirement, leant Levy a portrait he had of Jefferson by the American painter Thomas Sully, and David used it as his model for Jefferson’s face. Levy stayed in Paris until David completed the statue early in 1834.

David’s Jefferson stands seven-and-a-half feet tall and depicts Jefferson holding a quill pen in his right hand. In his left is an etched, word-for-word copy of the Declaration of Independence, complete with signatures, including the large “John Hancock.” The statue was cast in bronze and Levy shipped the finished statue and the plaster mold used to cast it to the United States.

On February 6, 1833, he presented the painted plaster model to the City of New York. The city fathers gave Levy what was called the “Freedom of the City” and a gold snuff box in appreciation. The statue was placed on the second floor of the Rotunda at City Hall in Manhattan. It was moved into the ornate City Council Chamber in the 1950s where it is today. It's at the extreme left in the photo below.

A month after he gave the model to New York City, Uriah Levy was in Washington where he presented the bronze Jefferson to the United States government. He had the words “Presented by Uriah Phillips Levy of the United States Navy to his fellow citizens, 1833,” etched on one side of the statue’s bronze base. “I beg leave to present, through you, to my fellow citizens of the United States, a colossal bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson,” Levy said in a letter he wrote to the House of Representatives. Levy spoke of his “pride and satisfaction” in offering “this tribute of my regard to the people of the United States” through Congress. He was sure, he said, “such disposition will be made of it as best corresponds with the character of the illustrious author of the declaration of our independence and the profound veneration with which his memory is cherished by the American people.”

Uriah Levy was breaking new ground. In 1833 the city of Washington did not have one monumental statue on display honoring an individual. That was one reason that the “disposition” of the statue was not decided until forty years later.

A joint House-Senate Committee quickly took up the matter and recommended that the statue be placed in the center of the square in the eastern front of the Capitol, which faces the Library of Congress and Supreme Court. The Senate then passed a resolution accepting the statue and directing that it be placed there.

During debate on the same measure in the House, however, more than a few members opposed the action. One congressman argued against accepting a statue from an individual American, and that it would be inappropriate for Congress to accept a statue of Jefferson when there was as yet no statue of George Washington in the Capitol. Another member objected because, he said, the David was not a good likeness of Jefferson In the end, though, the House voted, 69-55 to accept the statue.

Even though both the House and Senate resolutions called for the statue to be displayed outside the Capitol’s East front, for reasons that are unclear it was placed inside, in the Rotunda. On February 16, 1835, a resolution was introduced in the House to remove the statue from the Rotunda “to some suitable place for its preservation, until the final disposition of it be determined by Congress.” But no action was taken.

Sometime during the James K. Polk administration (1845-49)—the exact date is not certain—the statue was indeed removed from the Rotunda. It was shipped to the White House where, with the permission of President Polk, it was placed on the grounds on the north side facing Lafayette Park.

In 1874 Jonas Phillips Levy, Uriah Levy's youngest brother, spearheaded a campaign to get the David sculpture off the White House lawn, where it was not holding up well under the elements. Levy asked Congress to accept the David statue officially or return it to the family.

The statue was subsequently cleaned up and moved into National Statuary Hall in the Capitol and then, in 1900, to the Capitol Rotunda, where it stands today, the only statue in the building donated to Congress by an individual citizen. The Rotunda houses two other David pieces: a bronze bust of George Washington and a marble bust of Lafayette.

The David Jefferson is considered to be one of the most valuable pieces of artwork in the U.S. Capitol.

EVENTS: Because of the pandemic I have no events scheduled for February.

GIFT IDEA:  Want a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello? Please e-mail me. I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover copies, along with a good selection of brand-new copies of my other books.