untitled (maquette for "Pioneer Mother") Detail Page

Merrell Gage (Artist)

untitled (maquette for "Pioneer Mother")

ca. 1936

Seated figure of a woman holding a baby in her left arm, with her right arm resting upon the seated figure of a boy who is reading a book. Her right arm is on his right shoulder. Across the woman's lap is a musket and at her left side is a large dog lying down with its head slightly in front of the woman's left foot. The patina is of a dark copper brown. Gage used his family as the models: his wife is the mother, his son is the boy reading their family Bible, the dog was their dog. The finished large version of this sculpture is on the Topeka Statehouse grounds. The State Capitol Memorial was completed in 1937.