Augusta Freeman’s Baptismal Font and Other Discoveries in Chicago
by Isla Stewart
Attending the Victorian Society in America’s Chicago Summer School program included architectural walking tours, in-class lectures, private house and museum tours, and numerous unique experiences (figures 1 and 2). The organizers filled the eight-day program with an incredible amount of Victorian history.
Figure 1. Crab Tree Farm.
Figure 2. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple.
One of the most significant stops was the Wooded Island where the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair took place (figure 3). Going into the Summer School, I expected the content focused on the 1893 World’s Fair to be the most compelling. Lorado Taft’s willingness to train and employ female sculptors before, during and after the Fair allowed American women the opportunity and the skills to develop as professional artists. The lectures around the World’s Fair briefly touched on the women’s involvement and contributions. I hope to continue to research the incredible female artists who took advantage of the 1893 World’s Fair’s opportunities to become successful sculptors. Hopefully going forward, whenever anyone visits these sites, they have the opportunity to think of them as spaces where women visibly and successfully worked and inspired a younger generation of women to continue pursuing artistic professions.
Figure 3. The Wooded Island that served as the Japanese Pavilion during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
In a similar vein, the trip to St. James Cathedral stands out due to the marble baptismal font (figures 4 and 5) created by Augusta Freeman to commemorate the life of Gertrude Griswold Ayer, who died in 1871 at one year old from asthmatic complications following the Great Chicago Fire. As someone who studies 19th- and 20th-century female sculptors, discovering Freeman’s baptismal font definitely became the highlight of the trip. While women often found work within communities who respected their talents, the documentation of their artistic contributions usually falls short. Augusta Freeman appears briefly in Charlotte Rubenstein’s 1990 book American Women Sculptors: A History of Women Working in Three Dimensions. Rubenstein ends her entry by hoping that “scholars will unearth some of the interesting artifacts” by Freeman.
Figure 4. Augusta Freeman, Baptismal font, c. 1871. Marble. St. James Cathedral, Chicago, IL.
Figure 5. Detail of top of baptismal font.
I hope to develop an article on the baptismal font and conduct some more research into Freeman’s background as an artist. So far, I know Freeman signed her name on the baptismal font as only “Augusta Freeman.” Her full name was Horatia Augusta Latilla Freeman. She was born in London to Italian and English parents in 1826. She moved to Rome with her husband, genre painter James Freeman, around 1845 and began sculpting after meeting Harriet Hosmer several years later. Hosmer’s reputation as a freely independent American woman sculptor potentially inspired Freeman to embark on her own career. She quickly earned a reputation for her bas-reliefs, busts, ideal figurines, and decorative household objects. Little information readily exists on the specific details of her artistic career, but I hope to uncover more when I can dedicate more extended research time to this project.
The Ayer baptismal font’s composition represents the artist’s preference for cherubs (figures 6 and 7) and moralizing symbolism. As a memorial for a young child, the symbolism speaks to the innocence and tragedy of her death. An 1866 Art Journal article dismisses the putti motif as the artist’s desire for and inability to have her own children. The same was said of Mary Cassatt and other women who chose to become artists during the 19th century. This dismissal of women’s professional accomplishments diminishes their contributions to the medium. I believe the baptismal font actually tells a different story about Freeman’s position within her community. The Ayer family trusted her to commemorate and memorialize the life of their young daughter within the sacred space of the St. James Cathedral. I am increasingly interested in churches as spaces where women held social and artistic power within the United States prior to receiving political power through voting rights. Freeman’s baptismal font offers an incredible case study to explore some of these ideas and I never would have known about its existence without attending the Victorian Society’s Summer School.
Figure 6. Detail of baptismal font.
Figure 7. Detail of baptismal font.
Overall, the Victorian Society in America’s Chicago Summer School was a wonderful experience, and I am grateful to the Decorative Arts Trust for supporting my participation with a Continuing Education Grant scholarship.
Isla Stewart is a PhD student at Rutgers University.
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