T. A. Chapman Memorial

Daniel Chester French’s sculpture is a memorial cast in honor of Timothy Appleton Chapman.[1] Chapman was a pioneer dry goods merchant.[1] The bronze statue stands tall but the angel figure is close to human proportions. It is her base that makes her seem larger than life. The statue is quite weathered. The angel has a neutral face. The figure holds a dish to symbolize the pouring of the water of life into the ground.[1] The front of the base simply says CHAPMAN. The back of the statue says that the New York-based company Henry Bonnard Bronze cast the sculpture in 1896.

Upon his death in 1892, the pioneer’s wife and two daughters commissioned ths sculpture. The artist, Daniel Chester French, chose to use a frequent model of his, Jessica Penn Evans. The cast can be found in front of a crypt located inside the Forest Home cemetery.[1] An interesting fact about T.A. Chapman is that he was a major player in restoring Milwaukee after a big fire down town. It is a building on N. Milwaukee and East Milwaukee. The building was built five stories high and contained beautiful murals painted by Vergillio Tojetti.[2] He established T.A. Chapman Co. in 1857.[3] The artist, Daniel Chester French, is more well known for his design of the Lincoln Memorial.[4]

According to the Smithsonian Art Inventories database, the statue was last surveyed in May 1993, and it needed some treatment.[5]