Norfolk Highlights 1584 - 1881
By George Holbert Tucker
Chapter 39
Alexander Galt - The Sculptor from Norfolk
Alexander Galt, one of the best-known American sculptors of his day,
was Norfolk's first bid for national artistic fame.
Born in Norfolk on January 26, 1827, Galt was a son of Alexander Galt
Sr., Norfolk's postmaster at that time. His artistic talents were first
noticed when he was a pupil of a Frenchman, M. Schisano, whose school
was a well-known Norfolk institution of its day.
Galt's first efforts at sculpture were miniature figures carved from
pieces of chalk he carried in his pockets to chalk the taws he used
when shooting marbles with his schoolmates. From these he progressed
to small alabaster figures, after which he began carving cameos from
conch shells, several of which were set in gold and worn by Norfolk
belles of that era.
Galt's talents continued to develop rapidly, and when he was twenty-one
he realized his boyhood ambition of going to Florence, Italy, to study
sculpture.
By 1853, when he was twenty-six, Galt was an established sculptor,
and the two works he exhibited at the Crystal Palace exhibition in New
York of that year attracted considerable attention. One of these, an
allegorical marble bust called "Virginia," was purchased for
two hundred and fifty dollars by the Art Union of New York.
Galt's principal work, and the one by which he is best remembered today,
was a life-size marble statue of Thomas Jefferson commissioned by the
Virginia General Assembly in 1854 as a gift to the University of Virginia.
Upon completion, the statue, for which Galt received ten thousand dollars,
was brought back to Richmond, where it was exhibited against a scarlet
cloth background illuminated with gaslights.
After the Civil War, it was placed in the Rotunda of the University
where it remained until 1895, when the building was damaged by fire.
After the restoration of the building, it was returned to its former
place of honor.
An ardent Southerner, Galt sided with his native Virginia at the outbreak
of the Civil War. In 1862, when he was visiting Stonewall Jackson's
camp to take measurements of the general for a proposed statue, he contracted
smallpox. He died early in 1863 in Richmond and was buried in Hollywood
Cemetery there.
Fortunately, his correspondence, sketchbooks, diaries, and other papers
were carefully preserved by his family and are now in the library of
the University of Virginia.
Romantically classical by temperament, Galt drew his inspiration from
ancient Greece and Rome. One of his works, an ideal bust of Sappho,
has an interesting story.
Commissioned by the Norfolk-born Virginia historian Hugh Blair Grigsby,
the bust was shipped from Italy to New York early in 1861.
The Civil War had begun when it arrived, and as it was Southern property,
it was confiscated and sold to J. Nelson Tappan, a wealthy New York
merchant.
After the war, Grigsby went to New York in search of the bust, and
when he discovered it and presented Tappan with the evidence that he
was the rightful owner, the New Yorker graciously turned it over to
him, refusing any remuneration.
The bust was then shipped to Norfolk, where Grigsby installed it in
the drawing room of his halfbrother, the banker, John B. Whitehead,
where it was acclaimed the finest art work in the city until Grigsby
sent it to his country home in Charlotte County.
 Chapter
40
Other Notable Buildings and Houses
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