Nathan Hale (Modeled 1890, cast after 1890): Artwork and History

Nathan Hale (Modeled 1890, cast after 1890) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Frederick W. MacMonnies (American, 1863–1937) Cast by E. Gruet Jeune Foundry (French, 1891–1904).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Sculptor Frederick MacMonnies portrayed Nathan Hale, an American soldier and spy captured during the Revolutionary War, in the moments before he was killed by the British in 1776. MacMonnies rendered the bronze figure with naturalistic details: his waved locks of hair, parted overcoat and rumpled 18th-century dress, and ropes tied around his upper arms and ankles. Hale’s deliberate gaze and the open gesture of his hands convey a strong emotive quality attuned to the finality of the imminent punishment. This is a reduced version of the large-scale sculpture Nathan Hale installed in City Hall Park in New York, one of MacMonnies’s first public commissions.

Object facts

• Title: Nathan Hale
• Date: Modeled 1890, cast after 1890
• Artist attribution: Frederick W. MacMonnies (American, 1863–1937) Cast by E. Gruet Jeune Foundry (French, 1891–1904)
• Place of origin: United States
• Medium: Bronze
• Dimensions: H.: 72.4 cm (28 1/2 in.)
• Type: Sculpture
• Department: Arts of the Americas
• Reference number: 1923.1840

Collection credit

Gift of Robert Allerton

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.