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Private Theatricals/Last Moments behind the Scenes

John Rogers, born Salem, MA 1829-died New Canaan, CT 1904

John Rogers modeled many sculptures of what he described as the “spirit and action” of the theater. This piece shows two actors in seventeenth-century costume, making final preparations before going on stage. The artist’s sister, Laura Derby Rogers, may have posed for this group while visiting Rogers’s new house in Oenoke Ridge, New Canaan.

Date

1878

Type

Sculpture

Medium

plaster/cast/painted

Department

SAAM

Institution

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Object number

saam_1976.113.18

Credit

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Robert O. Werlich