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  • Arms for Art, and Other Shenanigans:The Curious Case of a Marble Bust of John C. Calhoun
  • John W. Coffey (bio)

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The bust of the seventh vice president of the United States arrived damaged—the purity of its Tuscan marble surface marred by unsightly yellow stains of unknown origin—and its provenance a mystery. John C. Calhoun, by Hiram Powers, in its damaged state. Modeled 1835, carved 1859, marble, H 291/2 inches. Presented to the State of North Carolina by Wharton Jackson Green, 1861; transferred to the North Carolina Museum of Art, 1956. Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art.

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The North Carolina Museum of Art first opened its doors in April 1956. That same month the museum received from the North Carolina Hall of History a marble bust of John C. Calhoun by the American sculptor Hiram Powers (1805-1873). Apparently, the Hall of History, later renamed the North Carolina Museum of History (NCMA), had little use for a bust of the seventh vice president of the United States. Though the preeminent statesman and political theorist of the Antebellum South, Calhoun was, after all, a South Carolinian. Also, the sculpture was damaged, the purity of its Tuscan marble surface marred by unsightly yellow stains of unknown origin. Even the provenance of the bust was a mystery: the Hall of History had no record of a donor. The Museum of Art accepted the sculpture without much enthusiasm, consigning it to the secondary "Study Collection."

In 1984, a conservator valiantly attempted to clean the bust, but the deeply saturated stains remained. In order to make the sculpture more presentable as a work of art, it was decided to mask the stains with stippled gouache, rubbed wax, and powdered talc. Wearing this cosmetic, John C. Calhoun has long glowered on his pedestal in the NCMA's American Galleries.1

That a portrait of a once-famous politician by an equally famed sculptor could be traced no further than the 1950s and the storeroom of the Hall of History sparked inevitable questions and a lengthy inquiry. Ultimately, a story emerged that places this marble bust at both the jubilant beginning and the bitter ending of the Civil War in North Carolina. For color and eccentricity, few tales can match it.

The story begins in 1835 in Washington, D.C., where the young Vermont-born sculptor Hiram Powers convinced many of the nation's good and great to sit for bust portraits. Working in a makeshift studio in the Capitol, Powers modeled each bust in clay for later casting in plaster and replicating in the whitest statuary marble. President Andrew Jackson sat for him, as did former President John Quincy Adams, Chief Justice John Marshall, and Senator John C. Calhoun.2

Calhoun's bust, modeled in late December 1835, is one of Powers's more memorable portrayals, combining classical idealism with an almost alarming intensity of character. While noting the nobility of Calhoun's head, the sculptor remarked that the senator's eyes "seem to burn in their sockets with all the surpassing restlessness and vigour of his soul." For the bust, Powers tamed Calhoun's unruly hair, which he deemed "effeminate and soft," into a more Roman coiffure. The brows were beetled to cast pensive shadows over the eyes. The cheeks, "hollow from loss of teeth," accentuated the asceticism of the face. Unusual among Powers's portraits, Calhoun gazes left and downward, suggestive perhaps of an ancient orator marshalling his arguments before speaking. Powers later boasted that many people thought his portrait of Calhoun "would pass for a bust of Brutus."3

By all accounts, Calhoun was flattered by the portrait. He later wrote to Powers, "If I am to go down to posterity, there lives not an artist to whom I would so willing[ly] [End Page 6] trust myself as you." The great man took a kindly interest in the young artist's career and saw to it that Powers was selected to carve his statue, which was planned for the City of Charleston. The Calhoun statue was the sculptor's first important civic commission. He received word of...

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