East Rock Statues Have Date With An Angel

The next hurricane might have knocked Patriotism right off her pedestal. The same goes for Victory, Prosperity, and History. A rescue crew has swooped to make sure that won’t happen.

The handsome 10-foot allegorical statues at the base of the city’s Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument have been completely unanchored for the past 125 years.

That was one of the remarkable findings made by Francis Miller and his crew from ConservArt, the team that is putting the finishing touches on the restoration of the statues and the four bas-reliefs atop the East Rock summit.

The work culminates the restoration of the statue complex, which began with the restoration of the Angel of Peace herself in 2006 and the rebuilding of the plaza that holds the statues in 2010.

Miller was the conservator who did the work on the Angel. This, the last phase, will be finished by the end of the month, Miller said, weather permitting.

This phase of the work costs $110,000. The money comes from an endowment provided through inheritance gifts to the parks commission, not capital funds of the city, according to Parks, Recreation & Trees Department Director Robert Levine.

Click here for a previous story on the cleaning and reinstallation of the Angel. And here for one on the restoration of the Angel’s 90-foot tower pedestal and its new plaza.

Miller began the work this summer on the four symbolic statues. To his astonishment, he found the statues had never been anchored and were sitting there, held by gravity and moving oh so slowly to the wind at their back.

At the end of October for a brief interval, the statues will fly — or at least be momentarily aloft, thanks to cranes — and then be secured into place with anchoring non-corrosive stainless steel rods with bronze hardware to match the statues.

Miller’s work included examination and repair of the four bronze bas-reliefs behind the statues. They signify all the major conflicts that had occurred in the history of the nation up to 1887, when the monument was dedicated: The Revolution, War of 1812, Mexican War, and, of course, the Civil War.

“All of the sculpture had black and green corrosion. You couldn’t visually recognize detail,” Miller said during a tour of the work in progress on a bright Tuesday morning.

The work of cleaning and stabilizing grew as he and his team discovered that elements were missing from some of the reliefs.

For example, the gentleman behind Robert E. Lee signing the peace agreement at Appomattox was leaning forward on what appeared to be a cane. But the cane was gone.

Although they had no period photographs,and couldn’t be 100 percent certain, Miller and his team saw that the hands appeared cupped as if over a T‑shaped cane.

Miller and his shop of several sculptors fashioned an appropriate cane for the gent, which Michael Donovan was screwing into place Tuesday morning. Donovan’s non-day job is teaching sculpture at Manchester Community College.

Miller pointed out that an officer in the Mexican War was holding the handle of a sword, but no blade. ConservArt is supplying the blade.

Like all the statues and reliefs, the added elements will be covered with a patina that matches that of the original. Then all the pieces will be covered with a bronze coating with acrylic, tested by the National Park Service, for maximum durability.

His is the first restoration work on these sculptures in a century and a quarter. The responsibility to get it right, for posterity, accompanies him in his work.

What really caught Miller’s attention, and made the job longer than expected, was that ​“the reliefs were being held in place mainly by gravity.”

The bronze anchors that had secured the reliefs to the masonry had been previously cut at the front and made flush with a weld. There was corrosion at the weld head. The freeze-thaw cycle behind in the mortar and bricks was causing all the reliefs to heave forward.

“You could shake them,” Miller said as he described what he found on first examination.

When they checked the statues more closely, they also found that the original anchor holes in the bases appeared never to have been used.

“The statue came close to migrating off the base,” Miller said, and another hurricane just might have done it.

Moreover, pigeon guano had accumulated behind all four of the statues. When the waste began to freeze and then thaw, it dropped into the limbs of Victory, fracturing her legs.

Ben Komola is a graduate student in sculpture. His day job on this particular day was putting on stainless steel screens so that the pigeons will not have an entry point into Victory ever again.

Local artist Silas Finch, a new employee of ConservArt, was busy removing iron ties that the original builders had inserted in the granite base. When that material freezes and thaws and then rusts, it caused spalling or fracturing in the granite.

The crew also discovered one of the major granite supports of the Angel’s tower to have moved out at least an inch. The heaving during the freeze-thaw cycle of bricks behind it and the trapped debris have caused this huge block to move an inch forward.

Miller and his crew have scraped and vacuumed behind as best they could reach. They’re going to affix stainless steel brackets into the block to secure against any future movement.

“It got my attention,” Miller said.

The statues and reliefs were designed by a firm called Moffit & Doyle in New York City, without a specific sculptor being named, according to extant records. The whole complex was going to be erected on the Green. Then more elevated heads prevailed, and the construction took place on the summit of East Rock performed by the local firm of Smith and Sperry.

Miller wasn’t sure who should take responsibility for not having anchored the statues and the reliefs with a greater sense of posterity. He’s taking care of that now.

Click here for a history of the monument; and here for more pictures of the monument and its artistic significance.