Rebecca at the Well
Ives, a Connecticut native, modeled "Rebecca at the Well" in his Rome studio in 1854. Like other American expatriate sculptors who worked in a neoclassical style, he derived many subjects from the Bible, especially the Old Testament. In Genesis 24:11–23, Rebecca was chosen to be the bride of Isaac, the son of Abraham, after offering him water she had drawn from a well. In Ives’s youthful figure of Rebecca, he was capitalizing on the renown he had achieved with sentimental images of children. The sculpture would prove to be his most successful work with twenty-five marble replicas sold over a period of forty years. Studio records indicate that half were sold to New York-area clientele, who constituted a ready patronage base, both through their Grand Tour travels to Italy and Ives’s savvy exhibiting and marketing of his work in the United States.
Artwork Details
- Title: Rebecca at the Well
- Artist: Chauncey Bradley Ives (1810–1894)
- Date: 1854; carved 1866
- Culture: American
- Medium: Marble
- Dimensions: 50 x 16 1/2 x 16 1/2 in. (127 x 41.9 x 41.9 cm)
- Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Anna C. McCreery, 1899
- Object Number: 99.8
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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Chauncey Bradley Ives
1854; carved 1855
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