T Stands For You've Seen His Work But Don't Know His Name

After the cemetery siting, Teague had found some information on a small museum in the center of Arlington. Parking in Boston and environs can be a bear and expensive. Fortunately, Arlington had a municipal parking lot for 50 center per hour of parking and steps away from

The museum was housed in the 

 Jefferson Cutter had been a prominent mill owner. The house was moved to the current site to be used for the Cyrus Dallin Museum

Hand-carved door.

The Cyrus Dallin Art Museum was such a find. It's not a well known destination so not many people there on the day we visited. We got a private tour from one of the founding board members as the regular docent had called in and wasn't able to take a shift.  James thoroughly enjoyed his job of promoting Dallin's art and the museum. He also had some great stories.

I had no clue who Dallin was, but I was familiar with this iconic work. 

The Appeal to the Great Spirit (1909)

This statue is at the entrance to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I've driven by it or walked by thousands of times, but thought it was done by Daniel Chester French or Augustus St. Gaudens, two other prominent New England artists.

If you've visited Plymouth, Massachusetts, you've seen the statue of Massasoit.

If you seen or been to the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, Utah or driven along Route 2 in Belmont, Massachusetts, you've seen Dallin's The Angel Moroni

 Cyrus Dallin came to Boston from Utah. As his fame as an artist grew, he was contacted by members of the Mormon Church to sculpt the angel for the steeple of the temple. Dallin refused saying he wasn't religious, didn't believe in angels and other numerous excuses.

The church leaders turned to Dallin's mother. As a young woman, she had been promised as 27th wife to Brigham Young while traveling by wagon train to Utah. She had met a young man, fell in love, didn't want to marry the older Young or be his 27th wife. The young couple left the wagon train, got married. I wasn't sure in the narrative whether Dallin's mother remained a Mormon after rejecting Young. Anyway, Dallin did the sculpture because of his mother's request.

Out of all the beautiful statues and paintings (he was quite accomplished as a painter, too. Having studied art in France and having some of the French impressionists as companions) This was my favorite piece. Of course. 

Dallin had been working on a sculpture of his 3 sons. You can see a photo of the sculpture behind the cat. The  youngest, Lawrence, age 6. Didn't like sitting still for the composition. After an hour or so he bolted from the studio with the request to sculpt the cat. According to James, the cat statue was on the dining room table when Lawrence returned from playing outside. 

In the photo, the older brother has his hand resting lightly on his middle brother's shoulder, but has a firm grip on Lawrence to keep him from running off while the statue was finished.

I was shocked to learn another iconic sculpture in the city, Paul Revere was done by Dallin. It took some 70 years for Dallin to get recognition for his work. Originally done as a competition, there was some sort of politics that played into the prize money not being given to Dallin as he was an unknown artist at the time. I also suspect that the Boston Brahmins didn't want to award the prize to Dallin as he was also not originally from Boston or New England. We Bostonians can be such snobs.

Undeterred,  Dallin went to Paris to study art, won another sculpture competition, and became an internationally known artist.

There were four other poses of Revere before Paul Revere, No. 5 was chosen. The title reminded me of the House of Chanel's perfume, Chanel No. 5. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the Revere statue.

After visiting the museum we were hungry for lunch. James had told us there were lots of restaurants in the area. We didn't have to walk very far along Massachusetts Avenue

Most of the restaurants we saw served foo-foo food. I'm not adventurous in my eating, and I don't like hot and spicy.

We ended up at a small pizza shop. Teague had a root beer, and I had water. I would have preferred an ice tea, but the selection was fruit flavored, and I thought would have a lot of sugar. I wanted to try not to go too far off the Keto rails.

We ordered a small, plain cheese pizza and could watch it baking in the fire, brick oven.

Pizza with its traditional crust is not Keto friendly (Keto is no carbs, no grain (wheat, rice, rye, etc.) but it was sooooo good.

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.