New York Times Article - Trivia Question: Do you know who sculpted the statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial?

It was the Piccirilli Brothers!

The six brothers credited with carving the Lincoln statue were named Ferruccio, Attilio, Furio, Getulio, Masaniello and Orazio.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, sculptors would normally sculpt their ideas in clay followed by casting them in plaster. Then the sculptor would hire skilled carvers to translate his vision into a stone sculpture. Before the Piccirilli's set up shop (a repurposed horse stables) in the Bronx of the late 1800s, an American sculptor would send his plaster cast to Italy for the skilled craftsmen there to execute that vision into stone. This could take up to a year to complete.

David Chester French, an American sculptor, created the plaster cast of Lincoln for the Memorial. He learned of the Piccirilli brothers and the extraordinary stone carving work they were doing throughout New York especially in public installations. Some of those works include the lions outside the New York Public Library, the carved figures in the pediment atop the New York Stock Exchange entrance, and 'The Joy of Life' bas-relief above the entrance to One Rockefeller Plaza. So David Chester French hired the Piccirilli brothers to carve the Lincoln Memorial statue in stone. The 7-foot high plaster cast provided to the brothers became the 19-foot high statue we see today (same proportions in each).

Two of the brothers had been academically trained in Rome prior to the family's immigration to America. Mr. French so highly regarded these two (Attillio and Furio) that he acquired original works by both men for the MET while he was head of the Museum's board of trustees sculpture committee in the early 1900s.

The New York Times article on the brothers is an excellent read (link below). It also mentions the discrimination that early immigrants faced even at that time. For example, Mr. French tried and failed twice to persuade officials in charge of the Lincoln Memorial to have the Piccirilli name added to it. Today, a quick check of the National Park Service website description of the Lincoln Memorial credits the Piccirilli brothers for the carving of the 28 blocks of Georgia marble that makes up the statue (link also below).

NYT Article about the Piccirilli Brothers

National Park Service write-up about the Lincoln Memorial

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