At the Threshold
The smooth, simplified treatment of this lifesize adolescent female on the verge of womanhood was inspired by Burroughs’s 1909 trip to Paris, where she admired the sculpture of modernist artist Aristide Maillol. The original tinted plaster version of "At the Threshold" was exhibited widely, including at the Berlin Photographic Company in New York, where Burroughs had her first solo exhibition in 1915, just a year before her death. In 1918 it was included in a long-term exhibition of American sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum. The following year the Metropolitan and the sculptor’s widower Bryson Burroughs, then its curator of paintings, arranged to have “At the Threshold” carved in limestone and tinted to resemble the original plaster figure.
Artwork Details
- Title: At the Threshold
- Artist: Edith Woodman Burroughs (American, Riverdale, New York 1871–1916 Flushing, New York)
- Carver: Carved by Piccirilli Brothers Marble Carving Studio (active 1893–1946)
- Date: 1912; carved 1919–20
- Culture: American
- Medium: Limestone, tinted
- Dimensions: 62 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 16 in. (158.8 x 36.8 x 40.6 cm)
- Credit Line: Amelia B. Lazarus Fund, 1920
- Object Number: 20.76
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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