Art: Complete Rushes

In 1809, Miss Nancy Vanuxem, pretty debutante daughter of Philadelphia City Councilman James Vanuxem, swathed herself in cheesecloth draperies and stepped up on a model stand holding a stuffed bittern by the right leg. It was a unique occasion in the history of U. S. art. William Rush, the first native wood carver of sufficient ability and reputation to be known as a sculptor, was at work on the first public fountain figure ever erected in the U. S., using, so far as records show, the first living female model. Years later the scene was painted by famed Thomas Eakins in one of his better canvases.

This week the fountain of Miss Vanuxem and her bittern (known officially as the “Spirit of the Schuylkill”) was on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and with it something unique in the history of art exhibitions: every known surviving work by Sculptor William Rush. Preparing for the show for ten months, Curator Henri Marceau raised the list of known surviving Rush items from about 30 to 80, and though it entailed a raid on Independence Hall itself for a statue of Washington, all of them were finally made available for this week’s show.

Sculptor Rush, son of a ship carpenter, started his career as a carver of ship figureheads and as such was neither unknown nor unrewarded. Besides being a ship carpenter his father was also first cousin to famed Dr. Benjamin Rush, best known American physician of his day, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Rush figureheads were in such demand that he employed apprentices to help him chop them out. Among shipowners he was famed for reintroducing the vertical figurehead, a figure that stood upright on the cutwater instead of hanging horizontally over the sea. British ship carpenters stood teetering with sketch pads in little boats to copy the latest Rush figureheads when new U. S. clippers reached the Thames, and one, a “River God” for the Ganges, was greatly admired by impressionable Hindus. Though the original figurehead for the Constitution was carved by a Boston carver, research has shown that it was after a William Rush design.

William Rush was not long satisfied with figurehead carving. Bemoaning the fact that he never had time to learn marble cutting, he did portraits of Washington, Franklin. Voltaire, Rousseau, Tilliam Penn, Lafayette, even carved a huge wooden crucifix for the Catholic Church of St. Augustine in Philadelphia. In 1844 an anti-Catholic mob destroyed it.

Artistically, the most important Rush statue in this week’s show was the George Washington borrowed from Independence Hall, which can hold its own with any Houdon. Interesting are a number of large anatomical models carved from wood for the University of Pennsylvania more than a century ago, so accurate that they are still used in lectures to medical students.

Sculptor Rush’s use of a female model shocked and outraged Philadelphia Quakers, but they soon forgave him. He was a member of the City Council for 22 years, a founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, a member of its board until his death in 1833.