The Providence Athenæum

The Athenæum’s bust of American abolitionist Frederick Douglass [1818-1895] is after the 1879 work by sculptor Johnson Mundy [1832-1897], which is part of the collection of the University of Rochester, NY. Commissioned by members of the Rochester community, Mundy modeled the marble bust from life. The sculpture portrays Douglass in contemporary shirt, jacket, and tie. A toga-like cloth is draped over his right shoulder, representing his democratic ideals and underscoring his stature as a national figure. Douglass spoke of Mundy’s bust, “The more I look at the bust, the better I like it. There is a fullness and a completeness about it which I have not often found in that class of work,” and went on to remark, “I am content to be made known through this specimen of your art to all who may come after me, and who may wish to know how I looked in the world.”

Douglass was born into slavery around February 1818 in Maryland. At a young age, he was taken from his home to live and work on a plantation, and subsequently rented by his master to a family in Baltimore where he was taught the alphabet and learned to read. During his later teen years, he was sent to work for a notorious “slave breaker” as a punishment for teaching other slaves to read.

On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped from slavery, traveling north through Newport, RI on the Underground Railroad. Once safely settled in Lynn, MA, he published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Douglass became an acclaimed orator and national leader in the abolitionist movement, publishing newspapers and traveling throughout the country and abroad giving lectures on the topic.

In 2019, the Athenæum commissioned a plaster copy of Mundy’s original bust from artist Robert Shure of Skylight Studios in Woburn, MA. Two other busts were commissioned at the same time: those of Mary Wollstonecraft and Louisa May Alcott.

"The Bust Project/Frederick Douglass."  The Providence Athenæum, 2020, www.providenceathenaeum.org/collections/the-bust-project/frederick-douglass/.  Accessed 19 Sep. 2020.

Levin, Yisrael. “‘I am content to be made known through this specimen of your art to all who may come after me.’” University of Rochester NewsCenter, 27 Jun. 2018, https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/frederick-douglass-bust-johnson-mundy-326692/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2020.

Memmot, Jim. “His vision failing, sculptor of Frederick Douglass statue kept on creating.” Democrat & Chronicle, 25 Jul. 2018, https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/07/25/frederick-douglass-sculptor-failing-eye-sight-remarkable-rochesterians/827572002/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2020.

Skylight Studios. Skylight Studios, Inc., 2018, https://www.skylightstudiosinc.com/.  Accessed 1 Sep. 2020.