Joseph Alexis Bailly

Background

He was born on January 21, 1825 in Paris, the son of Joseph Philidor Bailly, a manufacturer of cabinet furniture.

Education

He studied for a time under Baron Bozio.

Career

He worked in his father's factory, was a conscript in the Garde Mobile and during the Revolution of 1848 shot at his captain, escaped to New Orleans, and, after sojourns in New York, Philadelphia, and Buenos Ayres, settled in Philadelphia. He at first devoted himself to wood-carving and the cutting of portraits in cameo but soon took up sculpture, turning out numerous portraits--busts, medallions, and statues.

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts possesses two examples of his portraits - a bust of his wife and a plaster medallion of William Emlen Cresson. For the grave of the latter in Laurel Hill Cemetery he did a seated bronze effigy (1869) and near-by a similar seated figure of William Hughes (1870). Both have the characteristic realism of the latter nineteenth century, and the statue of Cresson the added characteristic of an accumulation of accessories on the base. Busts of Gen. Grant and Gen. Meade are likewise recorded. Bailly's work, however, was not confined to private commissions, for Philadelphia possesses several public monuments by his hand.

One of the earliest was a standing figure of Franklin cut from Brunswick stone and placed on the corner of the Public Ledger Building in 1866. This work was removed when the present edifice was built. In 1869 he made a marble statue of Washington, which was placed in front of the rear façade of Independence Hall. For better preservation it was later removed from its open-air pedestal to a position on the second floor of the City Hall, in a window overlooking the central courtyard, a position it still occupies. Its place near Independence Hall was taken by a bronze replica. Of all the effigies of Washington it is perhaps the most vacuous. The bronze statue of Witherspoon, erected in Fairmount Park in 1876, possesses a certain graceful dignity which makes it somewhat more pleasing than the earlier statues. Though most of his work was for Philadelphia, Bailly made for Washington, D. C. , a statue of General John A. Rawlins (1874), which was cast from Confederate cannon captured by Grant's armies.

When the Centennial Exposition was held in Philadelphia in 1876, Bailly exhibited an equestrian statue of President Guzman Blanco of Venezuela, which is now in Caracas, where is also another statue of Blanco by him. At the Exposition, likewise, was a statue of "Spring, " which has since disappeared. Of the same order of idealized subject as this last statue are two marble groups in the Pennsylvania Academy, "The Expulsion" and "The First Prayer. " These works, in treatment and execution, recall the work of mid-nineteenth century French sculptors such as Perraud and Crauk.

He died of heart disease and was buried in Mount Peace Cemetery, where there is no longer even a headstone to mark his grave.

Achievements

• His most famous work is the statue of George Washington in front of Independence Hall.

Membership

Bailly evidently attained to considerable reputation in Philadelphia, for he was made an Academician in 1856 and was an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy from 1876 to 1877.

Personality

He was an indefatigable and rather facile worker.

Connections

In 1850 he married Louisa, daughter of Louis David of Brie, France.

Father:

Joseph Philidor Bailly

Wife:

Louisa Bailly