The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
JOHN FRAZEE, the sculptor, died at the age of sixty, on the--th of
March, at the house of his daughter, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The
_Evening Post_ remarks that "he was a man of decided talent for
sculpture, but the necessity of employing himself in other occupations,
prevented his attaining that skill which, under more auspicious
circumstances, would have been within his reach." Mr. Frazee was born in
Brunswick, N.J., and in early life was a farmer and stone-cutter. One of
his first attempts at sculpture which attracted notice, was a clever
female bust, a likeness of one of his own family, exhibited in the
gallery of the Academy of Design. He afterwards, at the request of the
bar of New-York, was employed in the mural tablet and bust of John
Welles, which fills a conspicuous place in St Paul's Church. This
production, with others subsequently executed, attracted the attention
of the Trustees of the Boston Athenæum, and at their request, in 1834,
he proceeded to Boston, and modelled a series of busts of eminent men in
that city--Webster, Bowditch, Prescott, Story, J. Lowell, and T. H.
Perkins. Afterwards he went to Richmond, where he produced the likeness
of John Marshall, copies of which adorn the Court rooms of New York,
New-Orleans, and the Capitol of Virginia. On his return he visited
President Jackson, at whose house he executed an inimitable head of that
extraordinary man. Among his other productions were heads of General
Lafayette, in 1824, De Witt Clinton, John Jay, Bishop Hobart, Dr.
Milnor, Dr. Stearns, Nathaniel Prime, George Griswold, Eli Hart, &c. The
monument, however, which is destined to perpetuate his fame, is the New
York Custom-House. This edifice was commenced in 1834 by another
gentleman, who, when he had finished the base, abandoned the work and
withdrew his plans. Mr. Frazee was obliged to commence _de novo_, and in
1843 had completed the work. During the erection of the Custom-House,
from the dampness of its material and concomitant causes, he contracted
a disorder which caused paralysis, from which he never recovered. For
several years he held a subordinate post under the Collector. His last
effort with the chisel was in giving the finishing touch to the bust of
General Jackson, which had remained in his studio seventeen years,
without an order for completion. This was in November last, and while
assiduously at work, his mallet fell from his hand, and his worn-out
body followed it to the floor."
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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