This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Giuseppe Ceracchi, born in 1751, was the earliest and most important Italian Neo-classical sculptor to work in America. Ceracchi distinguished himself as a sculptor first in his native Italy, then, in the late 1770s, in London, and again at the Austrian court in Vienna. He returned to Rome in the 1780s, and arrived in this country early in 1791, inspired with the desire to win a commission for his proposed 100-foot monument to Liberty.
Toward that end, he produced a series of busts of the Great Men of America, modeled from life, some of which were cut in marble. The subjects included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Adams. These busts, all characteristically heroic in expression, are based on classical prototypes for hair and drapery. An example, "George Clinton," circa 1792, is in the New York Historical Society, New York City. Ceracchi also created a colossal bust of Liberty to be placed behind the speaker's chair in Congress Hall, Philadelphia.
In 1792, he returned to Europe, but his increasingly liberal principles brought him into disfavor with the papal government. He returned to Philadelphia in the fall of 1794, still seeking a commission for another elaborate monument, American Liberty. The failure of this project, because of its cost of $30,000.00, led Ceracchi to return to Europe once again, this time to Paris, where he became a favorite of Napoleon, whose portrait he executed.
Ceracchi rose high in politics under Napoleon, but later became involved in a plot against the General's life and was put to death in Paris in 1802. Antonio Canova later used Ceracchi's bust of Washington as a likeness for the full-length, seated George Washington he designed for the North Carolina State Capitol at Raleigh, completed in 1821.
Source:
Matthew Baigell, "Dictionary of American Art"
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art"
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