Larkin Goldsmith Mead (
January 3 1835 -
1910) was an
American sculptor.
He was born at
Chesterfield, New Hampshire, and was a pupil (1853-1855) of Henry Kirk Brown. During the early part of the
American Civil War he was at the front for six months, with the
army of the Potomac, as an artist for
Harper's Weekly; and in 1862-1865 he was in
Italy, being for part of the time attached to the United States consulate at
Venice, while William D. Howells, his brother-in-law, was consul. He returned to America in 1865, but subsequently went back to Italy and lived at
Florence.
His first important work was a statue titled
Agriculture, designed to top the dome of the
Vermont State House at
Montpelier, Vermont. This work proved so successful that he was soon after commissioned to sculpt a statue of
Ethan Allen for the portico of the Vermont State House. Mead's work can be seen as
neoclassical. His principal works are: the monument to President
Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois; Ethan Allen (1876),
National Statuary Hall, United States Capitol, Washington; an heroic marble statue,
The Father of Waters, New Orleans; and
Triumph of Ceres, made for the
World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, and a large bust of Lincoln in the Hall of Inscriptions at the Vermont State House.
His brother
William Rutherford Mead (1846-1928) was a well-known architect.