1. Admiral David Farragut
Other sculptors submitted models that were not quite accepted by the general public. Some faced
outright ridicule for their work. Here is a sampling:
J. Wilson MacDonald: The Washington Star called Farragut's pose "'grotesquely absurd,'
showing the 'old sea king...in acrobatic position on the top of a column holding a rope in the
attitude of throwing it to a trapeze performer.'"
Randolph Rogers: This sculptor wrote "I have represented him as in the top and lashed
to the mast, with speaking trumpet in his left hand and pointing the way with his right... his heart
bared to the storm of shot and shell". The Washington Star reporter wrote it looked like
"martyrdom at the stake... the Admiral being tied around the waist by a particularly heavy rope
to the broken stump of a particularly stout mast."
Edward Watson: 'Submitted a photograph of his unfinished model. The photograph made
clear enough Watson's lack of skill and preoccupation with pedestals rather than the person of
Farragut, who looked like a badly molded, featureless toy atop an enormous, ill-proportioned base.'
A reporter noted that there was "a good deal of pedestal and precious little Farragut."