I was absent when your letter to our firm of the 11th instant was received, and for some time afterwards. As this letter had been written in some manner personally, and as a reply to it involved a duty or a class of duties in which I have had an unusual personal experience, it was thought best that an answer to it should await my return.

You ask for a “perfectly free expression of opinion,” and it is obvious that you realize that such an expression will be a difficult and delicate duty. In fact, there are few matters of art as difficult to be dealt with wisely or which are as often dealt with in a way afterwards regretted, as that of placing sculptural works in suitable positions when they are required to be disengaged from stately buildings. There are two purposes to be had in view in these cases and they are often conflicting. They are, first, that of placing the sculptural work where it will be seen to the best advantage for the work itself; second, that of placing it where it will be seen to the best advantage as a subordinate element of a comprehensive scenic composition.

The ultimate public verdict in the case of the greater number of all [831]works of sculpture that have been set up in public places in Europe and America, for a century past, has been one of very imperfect satisfaction.

In New York so many works, offered as free gifts to the city, were, in early days, accepted by the Commissioners of the Central Park that the newspapers fell into the habit of making fun of the alleged disposition to give this pleasure ground the character of a rural cemetery. At length two works of sculpture were removed from the positions originally given them at the request of their donors, and placed where they would be less conspicuous; and, a few years afterwards, by-laws were adopted, providing as follows:- First, that no offer of a free gift of a bust or statue or other sculptural work commemorative of any person should be so much as taken under consideration before the person commemorated had been at least five years dead; second, that the name of the person or persons giving the work to the city should not be conspicuously displayed; third, that no proposition to give a place to a work of sculpture offered as a gift to the public should be considered by the Commission before a complete model of the work in question had been prepared and had been submitted to the consideration, and had obtained the acceptance, of a special Board acting independently of the Park Commission. This Board was, if I remember rightly, to be composed of the President, for the time being, of the American Academy of Design, the President of the American Art Museum, and the President of the American Institute of Architects. Since this action most of the works of sculpture that have been offered as gifts to the city have been declined and most of such as have been accepted have been placed in other and less conspicuous positions than those desired by the givers of them.

The same lesson is taught elsewhere. For example, here in Boston, a sculptured fountain offered as a gift to the city was accepted by the City Council and ordered to be set up in a public ground not under the management of the Park Commission. One not very conspicuous feature of this work was a bust of the giver of it. This particular feature was so much lampooned that by order of the City Council the bust was afterwards removed. But even after its removal the work as a whole continued to be so much ridiculed that at length the City Council (not the Park Commission) was constrained to order it taken away, and the place where it stood is now plain greensward.

There are other works of sculpture in the public grounds of Boston which are so commonly made fun of that those who gave them to the city would probably be glad if their gifts had been declined.

In London a costly monument to the Duke of Wellington became so much an object of ridicule that, after occupying for twenty years a conspicuous position at the entrance of a public park, it was taken down. When I was last there those of whom I inquired could not tell me what had been done with it. It had probably cost $30,000.00.

Judging solely by the experience which has been had within our knowledge through the action of those placed in charge of public grounds, we are of the opinion that nothing at all commemorative of a man who has been [832]lately living should be accepted as a gift with the condition that it stand on a public ground, and that no work of sculptural art should be given a place on a public ground the value of which, as a work of art, has not been formally attested by persons holding positions to which they have been appointed because of their possession in a rare degree of qualities fitting them for so difficult and delicate a duty.

Yours Respectfully