Woman with Flowers - Fredericksburg VA - Smithsonian Art Inventory Sculptures on Waymarking.com

A concrete statue of a woman holding flowers stands next to a Norway spruce on the west lawn of Chatham Manor across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, VA. The woman looks over her right shoulder as she stands on a concrete base with her right leg straight and her left leg slightly bent. Her right arm is extended across her body with roses held in her hand at her left hip. Her left arm is bent upwards and her hand holds roses at her left shoulder. The woman wears a garment loosely draped across her left shoulder and tied above her right hip leaving her right leg exposed. The fabric balloons out at her back. There is no design or inscription on the pedestal. The sculptor is unknown, although according to Chatham a landscape introduction, the statuary came from Kenneth Lynch & Sons. It is dated c. 1930.

Chatham Manor was originally built in the late 1700s. It went through several owners and changes over the next 150 years, including devastating damage during the Civil War, until the 1920s when Daniel and Helen Devore bought the property and began its restoration. They hired a landscape architect who extensively used statuary on the grounds, most notably in the gardens as accents and to draw visitors along the paths.¹

Today, the National Park Service owns the property. Although changes have been made to the original, ornate landscaping, some of the sculptures or exact replicas from the Devore years still remain, including the Woman with Flowers. Chatham is open daily from 9 AM to 4:30 PM. Admission is free.

¹ Gardens lost in time « HORTUS 2

TITLE: (Woman with Flowers) ARTIST(S): Unknown DATE: c. 1930 MEDIUM: Concrete CONTROL NUMBER: IAS VA000048 Direct Link to the Individual Listing in the Smithsonian Art Inventory: [Web Link] PHYSICAL LOCATION: West lawn of Chatham: 120 Chatham Lane Fredericksburg, VA 22405 DIFFERENCES NOTED BETWEEN THE INVENTORY LISTING AND YOUR OBSERVATIONS AND RESEARCH: If the statue is the original from the Devore years, it is probably from several years earlier than 1930. The NPS auctioned many of the statues when acquiring Chatham in the 1970s, but replaced the originals from the same source, Kenneth Lynch & Sons, in the 1980s. If this is one of the replacements, it would be c. 1980.

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