Sabrina

After William Calder Marshall, RA (1813-1894)
Cast Iron
Reproduction of a ca. 1867 piece
Robertson Iron Works, Alexander City, Alabama

Sabrina is the goddess of the River Severn from Milton’s Comus, first published in 1634. Historic photographs of the Belmont grounds show the statue in the approximate location where it sits today. Sabrina appears as number 106 [3 ft. 5 in. tall] in the 1858 Beebe Catalogue and again in the 1870 Janes, Kirtland & Company Catalog. Additionally, the statue appears in the 1873, 1875 and 1890 catalogues of Mott & Company [1]. This statue is a copy of the famous marble statue by William Calder Marshall, RA (1813-1894). The original marble statue was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847. An engraving of the statue was published in the Art Journal of London in 1849. In the same year the Manchester Art Union issued the piece in Parian (an unglazed porcelain) made by Copeland of England. Copeland exhibited their Parian statue as part of an exhibit at the Great Exhibition in 1851 in London also known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition [2].

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[1] Grissom, Carol A. Zinc Sculpture in America: 1850-1950. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2009), 247.
[2] The Parian Phenomenon: A Survey of Victorian Parian Porcelain Statuary & Bust, ed. Paul Atterbury, (Somerset, England: Richard Dennis).