Description: Actual hand written speech: Speech, November 23, I9I8. famed Gramercy Park Players Club at supper in honor of Quinn and Dodge, Sculptor and Architect, designers of the Edwin Booth Monument. Speaker unknown but would be famous person of the day. “John Wilkes Booth's older brother, Edwin Booth, was a popular Shakespearean actor. He did not perform for a while after Lincoln's assassination and his brother's subsequent execution, but he eventually returned to the stage. Toward the end of his career, Booth founded the Players Club on Gramercy Park South. The Players Club presented the statue of Booth as Hamlet to the park in 1918.” “He was considered the preeminent Shakespearean actor of his day and built the magnificent marble Booth's Theatre on West 23rd Street in which to stage Shakespearean plays. Only weeks after Booth's death a movement had started to erect a memorial. The famous actor Joseph Jefferson said in The New York Dramatic Mirror on January 13, 1894, "The Booth statue must be the finest of all the statues in Central Park. It must be made by an American sculptor. I should favor a submission of competitive designs.” The winning sculptor was Edmond T. Quinn, who coincidentally or not, was a Players' member. The statue was unveiled on November 13, 1918, Booth's birthday. Quinn had depicted the actor at the age of 35 in his role as Hamlet, just rising from a chair. Arts & Decoration magazine pointed out that ‘What invests this act with extraordinary importance is this--that it is the first statue erected in this country to an Actor.’ (Technically, William Shakespeare, whose statue stood in Central Park, could be defined as an actor; but the memorial remembered him as a playwright.) The article wrote ‘The statue, of dull green bronze, on a dull green stone pedestal [designed by architect Edwin S. Dodge], stands in the centre of the Park, looking south--as all portrait-statues should look--in order to always have the face in the sunlight.’ - Dayton inManhattan.blogspot .com
Price: 1375 USD
Location: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
End Time: 2025-02-09T15:11:12.000Z
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All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Industry: Historical
Signed: Yes
Original/Reproduction: Original
