Thomas Crawford, b. New York City, Mar. 22, 1813, d. Oct. 10, 1857, was among the first of many 19th-century American sculptors to settle in Rome. He studied (1835-36) there with Bertel Thorvaldsen, who was a leading exponent of neoclassicism. Crawford's first independent work, Orpheus and Cerberus (1838-43; Boston Athenaeum), was based on the Apollo Belvedere, the Greek statue considered the greatest ancient sculpture by ardent neoclassicists. When his statue was exhibited in Boston, the first sculptured male nude to be seen the United States, Crawford's reputation was immediately established. In 1855 he created the statue Armed Freedom that crowns the dome of the Capitol of the United States.
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