Preparedness
Paul Wayland Bartlett American
Cast by Griffoul American
Bartlett was said to have begun this statuette of an American eagle the day after the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915. The artist was an advocate of the preparedness movement, in which increasing numbers of Americans favored military preparation for World War I. “Preparedness”, modeled by early 1916, is the most overt proclamation among Bartlett’s works of his sympathies with the Allied cause. The stately, but loosely modeled bird is perched atop a rounded mass with a shield in front and a banner imprinted “Preparedness.” By April 1916, Bartlett had received a number of orders for bronze replicas. Casts were produced both in Newark, New Jersey, as in the case of the Metropolitan’s bronze, and in Paris.
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