Artist:     after Antonio de Francisci (1887-1964)
Title:       Miss Liberty with Golden Hair
Medium:  Bronze facsimile Signed in Plate
Size:       Life size  
Price:      SOLD

Ref...
"Since he could not afford to pay an expensive professional, he asked his lovely, new, 22-year old wife, Maria Teresa Cafarelli, to serve as his model. She agreed because it was the realization of her fondest childhood dream....... To capture the vigour and vibrancy of her youth, her new husband opened the window of his studio and let the wind blow through her hair. He apparently captured the look that he wanted.............  
he sculpted her head in profile with slightly parted lips and windswept hair to be a breathless Miss Liberty"

De Francisci was born in Palermo, Sicily, on June 13, 1887. He was the youngest of ten children born to Benedetto and Maria Liberante de Francisci. Antonio began to develop his artistic talents in his childhood by carving with his father who was in the marble business. Later in life, de Francisci remarked that he could not remember a time when he did not draw or make models. He began the study of art in Italy but emigrated at the age of 16 to the United States in 1903. Soon after his arrival, he resumed his studies at Cooper Union in New York City under the tutelage of George T. Brewster.

De Francisci continued his studies at the National Academy of Design where he later became a national academician and a council member. Subsequently at the Art Students League, he studied under James Earle Fraser who would go on to design the Indian head or so-called buffalo nickel which would serve the United States from 1913 to 1938. After graduation in 1907, he served one-year apprenticeships with Brewster, Philip Martiny (born Filippo Martini), Charles Niehaus and Herman A. MacNeil who would design the standing Miss Liberty quarter which was a U.S. coin from 1916 to 1931. In 1911, de Francisci became an assistant to Adolph A. Weinman who gave him sound technical training in engraving. Weinman would also make a lasting mark on U.S. coinage by engraving the Mercury dime which was used from 1916 to 1945 and the walking Miss Liberty half dollar which covered the period from 1916 to 1947.

While working for Weinman in 1913, de Francisci became a U.S. citizen and changed his first name to Anthony. Starting in 1915, he became an instructor in sculpture at Columbia University. He would later also teach at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design and the National Academy of Design, both in New York City.