Emma Stebbins

1815 – 1882

Emma Stebbins was born in New York City, where her father John Stebbins was a prominent Wall Street broker and president of the North River Bank. Stebbins studied painting and sculpture in various American studios and concluded, as did many American sculptors in the 1850s and 1860s, that to receive proper training in sculpture she must go to Rome, where the best instructors and patrons gravitated. She moved to Rome in 1856 and was soon accepted into the studio of eminent American sculptor Benjamin Paul Akers.

In Rome, Stebbins met the American actress Charlotte Cushman, who would become champion of her career. The two formed an intense friendship and became devoted companions. With Aker’s direction and Charlotte’s encouragement, Stebbins began accepting commissions from touring Americans and established a name for herself as a sculptor of portrait busts and classical figures. With the help of Charlotte’s influence, she began securing more prestigious commissions, including the statue of Horace Mann in front of the State House in Boston (dedicated in 1865) and a statue of Christopher Columbus (1867) in Columbus Park beside the Supreme Court Building in Brooklyn.

Emma’s brother Henry Stebbins, President of the Board of Commissioners of Central Park, was instrumental in her selection for the most important commission of her career—a sculpture to adorn Bethesda Fountain, the symbolic heart of the Park. The result, her Angel of the Waters sculpture, is among the most celebrated and widely-recognized works of art in the city of New York.