Art Patron
He was a friend and patron of the artist Thomas Eakins. Following Eakins's 1886 firing from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he may have suggested the artist's trip to the Badlands of North Dakota . The Philadelphia Chippendale chair seen in several Eakins paintings—such as William Rush Carving his Allegorical Figure of Schuylkill River (1877) and the bas-relief Knitting (1883) -- was owned by Mitchell.
The artist John Singer Sargent painted two portraits of Mitchell, one is in the collection of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the other, commissioned by the Mutual Assurance Company of Philadelphia in 1902, was recently sold (see External Links, below).
In memory of his daughter Maria, Mitchell commissioned a monument from the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, The Angel of Purity (a white marble version of Amor Caritas), now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition to commissioning August Saint-Gaudens works, he was commemorated in two identical brass reliefs sculpted by Saint-Gaudens himself.
Read more about this topic: Silas Weir Mitchell
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