Grieving Mothers - Valley Forge, PA
N 40° 06.277 W 075° 26.282
18T E 462666 N 4439460
"Grieving Mothers" or "Sacrifice and Devotion" was sculpted by Bela Lyon Pratt and dedicated in 1914 at Valley Forge. The sculpture is dedicated to the memory of In memory of Henrietta Armitt (Brown) Heckscher.
Waymark Code: WMH5BJ
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 05/25/2013
Views: 4
This sculpture is located to the left of the Washington Memorial Chapel in the New Hampshire Bay in the Cloister of the Colonies, an open air courtyard. The statue is in the center of the courtyard. There are countless Revolutionary War memorials throughout the cloister; just look to the marble floor, granite and wood carvings.
The statue has a green patina but is on otherwise good shape. The statue is that of a woman kneeling with her proper left hand holding onto a stand. Her proper right hand is resting on the stand, holding a dish with her fingertips, raising it up, as if it were an offering. Her head lies on her proper left arm; her face cannot be seen. I was able to get right underneath her and shoot a photo of her face so it is there. The statue was sculpted by Bela Lyon Pratt (1867-1917), who apparently died a young woman, of 50, only 3 years after her piece of dedicated. The statue is bronze with a marble base and is just a smidgeon larger than life size. The sculpture was commissioned by Stevens Heckscher, husband of Henrietta Armitt (Brown) Hechsher. He died on May 8, 1931 in Strafford, Pennsylvania.
The inscription reads:
To The Mothers Of The Nation
And In Memory Of
Henrietta Heckscher
Died in Child-Birth
June 11, 1912
A dedicated website for the sculptor and in particular, this sculpture, can be found HERE. There are pictures of the original clay model used to make the sculpture. The Smithsonian site for this sculpture can he found HERE.