Background
Thompson was born in Abbeyleix, Ireland, in 1833. He came with his widowed mother to the United States in 1847. They made a home in Albany, N. Y.
Thompson was born in Abbeyleix, Ireland, in 1833. He came with his widowed mother to the United States in 1847. They made a home in Albany, N. Y.
In 1848 Erastus Dow Palmer, who had made a portrait bust of Dr. Armsby, accepted Launt as a studio boy, doubtless because of the striking talent shown in his drawings of bones and muscles, made at the doctor's office. During the nine years he spent as assistant to Palmer, a kindly, conscientious master, Thompson developed into a capable young sculptor, expert in all studio processes, especially clay modeling and marble carving.
In 1857 he set up a studio for himself in New York City, where he promptly met recognition, at first for ideal medallion heads in Palmer's vein and soon afterward for more original productions not only in relief but also in portrait busts and statues.
In 1865 Thomas Bailey Aldrich described for young readers his visit to Thompson in the famous Tenth Street studio building, where the sculptor was at work on the plaster cast of a colossal statue of Napoleon I, almost ready for the bronze. On the walls were many medallions, portrait or ideal, the subjects of the latter including Elaine and other heroines from the Idyls of the King. "Morning Glory, " the profile of a child with a flowery fillet, became a popular work. There were three life-size busts, representing the "Rocky Mountain Trapper, " Edwin Booth as Hamlet, and the poet William Cullen Bryant. Thompson's carefully studied head of Bryant, of which there is a copy in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, has remained for sculptors the authentic source portrait of the poet. The "Trapper" and the Napoleon I were shown in 1867 at the Paris Exposition, after which the sculptor spent some months in Rome, Italy. The Napoleon has been praised as an example of "dignified monumental art, " "self-contained in every line", and irreproachable in modeling. Equally sculptural in conception, though less pleasing in detail, is Thompson's bronze statue of Abraham Pierson, the younger, erected on the campus of Yale University in 1874.
Later he went to Italy for a prolonged stay, from which he returned to New York in 1881. During his Albany years the Palmers must have felt a true esteem for the young sculptor, for they gave his name to their son, Walter Launt Palmer. Thompson learned many things from his generous elder, but not the secret of orderly living. He was endowed, it has been said, "with an intuitive grasp of the sculptural side of things, and with an artistic conscience, which seems the more remarkable when contrasted with his erratic life. " His influence on early monumental art in America was undoubtedly good. He died at Middletown, N. Y.
He was made an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1859, and a full member in 1862.
In September 1869 Thompson married at Schenectady, N. Y. , Maria L. Potter, daughter of Bishop Alonzo Potter.