Edward V. Valentine Sculpture Studio, The Valentine Museum

ABOUT

The mission of the Valentine is to engage, educate, and challenge a diverse audience by collecting, preserving, and interpreting Richmond’s history. A visit to the campus includes exhibition galleries on Richmond history, the Federal-period Wickham House, the Edward Valentine Sculpture Studio, and a garden. Guests can explore the galleries and Valentine on their own, take a guided tour of the Wickham House, and enjoy a rest in the garden. The museum is free to the public on Thursdays with extended evening hours and regular program offerings. “Sculpting History at the Valentine Studio: Art, Power, and the ‘Lost Cause’ American Myth” explores Edward Valentine’s role in supporting the Lost Cause mythology through sculpture and other forms of power.

SPECIAL RESOURCES

_{Edward Virginius Valentine poses in his studio. Cook Collection, The Valentine, Richmond, VA.}

If statues are to be erected, they must be a defense of the Southern Cause as much as histories and school books.”

— Edward Valentine, c. 1900

Edward Valentine (1838–1930)

Born in 1838, Edward V. Valentine’s interest in art led him to work with Richmond artist William Hubard and to take anatomy classes. In 1859, Valentine left for Europe to work with several artists, including German sculptor August Kiss, until 1865. After returning to Richmond, Valentine established a sculpture studio in an old carriage house and sculpted Confederate generals for public display and racist caricatures for private home decoration. His work spread the Lost Cause myth. In this studio, Valentine made the majority of his works, including the Recumbent Lee for Washington and Lee University, the classical sculpture Andromache and Astyanax displayed at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893, and the statues for the Davis Monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond (removed in 2020). From 1894 until his death in 1930, he served as the first president of the Valentine Museum, founded by his brother, Mann S. Valentine II.

_{Courtesy The Valentine, Richmond, VA.}

LEARN MORE

Edward Virginius Valentine was born in Richmond, Virginia on November 12, 1838 to Mann Satterwhite Valentine (1786-1865) and Elizabeth Mosby Valentine (1801-1872). Mann Valentine was a wealthy merchant who owned enslaved workers. Edward Valentine studied modeling and drawing informally under William James Hubard, and, to further his artistic training, Valentine enrolled in anatomy classes at the Medical College of Virginia from 1856 to 1858.

Like many American sculptors, Valentine studied abroad. He left Richmond for Europe on September 28, 1859, when he was only twenty years old, to study with European artists including German sculptor August Kiss (1801-1865). The death of Kiss and Valentine’s own father in 1865, as well as the end of the Civil War, prompted Valentine to return to the United States.

After his return, Valentine moved several times between 1865 and 1871, including to a rented studio above his brother Mann S. Valentine II’s dry goods store at 1208 East Main Street. In August of 1871, Valentine bought a 1830s carriage house at 809 East Leigh Street, originally part of the Hayes-McCance property that he remodeled into a studio. The existing structure measured twenty-two by fifty-six feet and served as both his working studio and, briefly, his living quarters.

It was here that Valentine made the majority of his works, including the Recumbent Lee for the chapel at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), the classical sculpture Andromache and Astyanax based on the epic poem the Illiad and displayed at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, and the statue of Jefferson Davis for the Davis Monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond, VA (torn down by protestors in 2020).

He would sculpt many Confederate politicians and generals over his career including Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, William Smith, Christopher Memminger, John Breckinridge, J.E.B. Stuart, George Pickett, Mathew Fontaine Maury, P.G.T. Beauregard, and Robert E. Lee. Some of his more famous guests included future U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, and British author Oscar Wilde.

Valentine retired around 1910 and gave up the use of his studio on Leigh Street, where he had created the majority of his works, moving to an apartment overlooking Monroe Park on West Franklin Street. He served as the president of the Valentine Museum, founded by his brother Mann S. Valentine II, from its incorporation in 1894 to his death in 1930.