Francis Preston Blair Jr. Statue

Missouri gave this statue to the National Statuary Hall Collection in 1899. Alexander Doyle (1857-1922) sculpted three statues in the collection, contributed by Missouri and West Virginia.

Doyle uses contrapposto (uneven distribution of weight) to create a natural posture, with Blair settled on his right leg, gazing up and to the right. Blair's right hand is on his hip, and his left arm rests on several books stacked atop an ornate column. He is dressed in period clothing, including a vest, bow tie, loosely draped pants and an open frock coat. The folds of the coat also bring a sense of movement to the statue, with the lining visible on Blair's left side and the right side jutting out nearly as far as his bent elbow.

Records do not indicate whether this statue depicts a particular moment in Blair's life, but the use of civilian dress is suggestive. Blair raised multiple regiments during the Civil War and fought for the Union Army, rising from colonel to major general. Toward the end of the war, he marched with General William T. Sherman through the South. The depiction of Blair as a civilian highlights his government service instead, both in the Missouri legislature and in the United States Congress. He served all or parts of multiple terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he chaired the Committee on Military Defense from 1861-1862; after the war, he served part of a term in the U.S. Senate.

At the time of the statue's dedication, Blair was famous for the role he played in keeping Missouri in the Union at the start of the Civil War, when he plotted political and military maneuvers to maintain control of the state government for Unionists. After the war, his lifelong advocacy for union manifested in his support for a Reconstruction period that reduced consequences for former Confederates. He ran as vice president with Horatio Seymour against the Grant-Colfax ticket in 1868.

The column topped with books provides the "third leg" needed for structural stability, but the books also reference Blair's education and occupations. He attended Princeton University and studied law at Transylvania University. He practiced law in partnership with his brother Montgomery in St. Louis before his service in the state and federal legislatures.

The gray marble pedestal features a bas-relief carving of the Missouri state seal. Doyle created an identical pedestal for the second Missouri statue and a similar one for the West Virginia statue he sculpted. Together, the statue and pedestal are just over 11 feet tall.

Congress officially accepted the works in 1899—the House in February and the Senate in May. Members of Congress spoke warmly and affectionately about Blair, extolling his leadership, actions during the Civil War, and choices after the war. The statue of Blair is currently placed in National Statuary Hall.

Artist

Alexander Doyle was born in Steubenville, Ohio, on January 28, 1857. His father worked in the stone business, and the family spent several years in Italy when Doyle was young. He returned to Italy as a young man, supervising the family's business interests and studying sculpture, music and painting in Carrara, Rome and Florence. When he returned to the U.S. in the late 1870s, he quickly found clients.

A prolific sculptor, he maintained studios in New York and Squirrel Island, Maine, and he worked in both bronze and marble. Many of his commissions were for military figures; he sculpted both Confederate and Union figures. In an 1884 newspaper interview, Doyle discussed his approach to portrait sculpture and stated that contemporary artists were moving away from traditional motifs like "classical garb." He argued that "[w]e prefer our heroes and statesmen clothed in the habits of our times, and often select some great incident in their career, and portray them in such a manner as to commemorate that event. The more advanced and most successful artists are those who impress the beholder with strong realism at first sight, that gives the full impression of the dignity and character of the hero."¹

In 1898, shortly after Doyle completed statues of Francis Preston Blair Jr., Thomas Hart Benton, and John Kenna for the National Statuary Hall Collection, his father died. Doyle stopped sculpting to manage his estate and limestone quarry. In 1906, Doyle returned to sculpture when he volunteered to create, for free, a massive bronze statue of Edwin McMasters Stanton, also a native of Steubenville. He retired after the statue was dedicated in 1911 and worked on a model for a statue of Lincoln until just before his death on December 21, 1922 in Deadham, Massachusetts. Other subjects of his sculptures include Generals Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee and Philip Schuyler, President and Representative James A. Garfield, and newspaper publisher Horace Greeley.

The Missouri statue commission selected Doyle from among multiple artists competing for the Benton and Blair statue commissions. Doyle completed the two commissions in about two years. The statues are carved from Italian marble. He shipped them to the U.S. Capitol, along with West Virginia's statue of Kenna, with a request that the two Missouri statues be displayed near one another. In 2022, Missouri replaced the statue of Benton with a statue of Harry S. Truman.

1. Joseph B. Doyle for the Stanton Monument Association, In Memoriam: Edwin McMasters Stanton: His Life and Work, With Account of Dedication of Bronze Statue in His Native City (Steubenville, OH: The Herald Printing Com- pany, 1911), 387.