Erastus dow palmer biography of albert

American sculptor

Erastus Dow Palmer (April 2, 1817 – March 9, 1904) was an American sculptor.

Life

Palmer was born in Pompey, New York on April 2, 1817. He was the second of nine children. He showed early artistic promise, and pursued his father's trade of carpentry. Palmer married Matilda Alton in 1839 and had a son, but both mother and child died soon after; he remarried, to Mary Jean Seamans, in 1840, and settled in Utica, New York.^[1] In his leisure moments as a carpenter Palmer started by carving portraits in cameo, and earned the encouragement of Thomas R. Walker, a local art patron in Utica, who introduced him to prominent artists in New York City.^[1]

Sculpture

By 1849, Palmer had relocated to Albany with his family and had transitioned from cameo-cutting to large-scale sculpture.^[2] He worked in a primarily neoclassical style. Palmer mounted an exhibition of twelve of his sculptures,