Bust of Morris K. Jesup

Bust of Morris K. Jesup

Couper, William

Lib

32 1/2 (high) x 24 in. (wide at shoulders) x 15 (depth)

521

William Couper was born in Norfolk, Virginia, where his father owned a profitable stoneworks. As a boy, William played in the marble lots watching artisans make statues. He decided to become a sculptor and trained in New York City, Munich, and in Florence, where he made portraits and idealized busts. He married and started a family in Italy, but decided to move back to America, where he built a large home in New Jersey and shared a studio in New York City with the sculptor Thomas Ball. Couper retired from sculpting in 1913 and painted seascapes in oil and watercolors until his death. (Smithsonian quarterly) lived in Montcalair, NJ, died in Easton, Maryland
More on Couper: http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=1012

Library

Sculpture

Marble sculpture

Signed in the marble (on left side edge of Jesup's jacket)