Browere's Life Masks of Great Americans — A Reader’s Guide

The Plastic Art and Its American Practitioner

The first three chapters establish the context for Browere’s work. Hart defines “plastic art” broadly, then narrows to its practice in the early United States, where sculptors were scarce and life masks were a niche technique. Browere himself is introduced as an “ingenious ancestor” whose surviving works were preserved by his grandchildren. Hart’s tone is that of a discoverer: he repeatedly emphasizes that Browere’s name was “wholly and entirely forgotten” until his own articles in McClure’s Magazine revived it. The chapters rely heavily on quoted endorsements from contemporaries, such as De Witt Clinton’s praise of Browere’s “accuracy” and “skill.” These testimonials serve as the primary evidence for Browere’s artistry, since Hart provides little technical analysis of the masks themselves.

Testimonials and the Problem of Reputation

Hart’s method is to let the sitters speak. For each mask, he reproduces letters or statements from the subject or from notable observers. The chapter on La Fayette includes a note from Morse, who was both a rival painter and a supporter of Browere’s bust. Hart comments wryly that Morse’s praise is “strong words coming from a rival artist.” The chapter on De Witt Clinton features an impromptu poem by Samuel Woodworth, author of “The Old Oaken Bucket,” and a letter from Thomas Addis Emmet. These documents are the book’s backbone, but Hart occasionally adds his own judgments, as when he calls Clinton “the first recognized practical politician of this country” and notes that his high private station “was powerless to overcome” public distrust. Such asides reveal Hart’s own historical interests beyond Browere.

The Limits of the Record

Hart’s evidence is almost entirely textual. The excerpts include no detailed descriptions of the masks’ physical appearance, nor any discussion of Browere’s technique beyond the fact that he worked in plaster. The book’s plates are listed but not described in the text. Hart’s reliance on written testimonials means that the reader must take the accuracy of the masks on faith, filtered through the opinions of early nineteenth-century figures. The proem acknowledges that the volume grew out of magazine articles, and the structure—short chapters, each centered on a single subject—reflects that origin. What emerges is a portrait of an artist through the eyes of his contemporaries, not through direct analysis of his work. The book is as much about the act of historical recovery as it is about Browere himself.

Readers interested in the history of American sculpture or in the material culture of the early republic will find Hart’s volume a useful primary source, but they should approach it as a collection of documents rather than a critical study. The testimonials from figures like Morse and Clinton offer a window into how life masks were valued in the 1820s, while Hart’s own commentary reflects late nineteenth-century attitudes toward art and reputation. For a fuller understanding of Browere’s technique and the physical objects themselves, supplementary sources would be necessary.

Reading about Browere’s plaster masks, I kept thinking how strange it is to touch a face that once belonged to Jefferson. There’s a similar quiet ache in Raemaekers' Cartoons: With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers — Context and Discussion, where drawings hold a war’s breath, pinned like a butterfly. Both books let history sit close, almost breathing, before slipping back to dust.