A Mom-umental Failure

Fired for punching a union organizer in the nose, and unable to find sculpting work, Noble was forced to join a barnstorming boxing show. He spent a year on the vaudeville circuit, fighting under the name "The Art Student." By the time he quit the ring, he had saved $28,000, enough to finance more study. He apprenticed with architectural sculptors in New York and Boston. In his spare time, he visited a dissecting room to learn about anatomy.

He eventually settled in Newport, R.I., where he opened an art school and set about earning commissions. He specialized in portrait medallions and busts of actors and actresses. He also won large public jobs, designing the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument that stands in Newport's Congdon Park. When he heard that the new Capitol building in his home state of Maine was going to be topped by a cheap zinc figure, he donated a copper repoussé statue of his own design: "Lady of Wisdom."

Noble never did something that was expected of every self-respecting artist at the time: make a grand tour of Europe. He was proud of the fact that he was an American sculptor, a "man's man" who eschewed the cliches of the tortured Continental creative. No long hair and effete manner for him. He was stocky, cigar-smoking and looked just like what he was, a former boxer. He preferred vigorous action over reflection, claiming that he could sculpt a likeness of any person in a matter of minutes.

As the author of a 1924 profile for the Dearborn (Mich.) Independent wrote: "His training is a direct violation of all the traditions which long have governed the American art world. He has never been the pupil of foreign masters. He is wholly an American-educated sculptor . . . The foreign masters of the day recognize Noble's greatness and genius."

Noble had a few other American traits: He was litigious. When he felt that clients were slow to pay him, he sued. Also, he spent more than he earned. In 1899, when he was living in New York, he declared bankruptcy, with liabilities of $28,744.

Before that, there was a curious episode from 1897. When Noble was 38, he was arrested and charged with bilking $2,000 from a woman named Julia Adelaide Price, his model for a statue of the Madonna. Noble had been so distracted by her beauty that he found it hard to work, Price told police. Desperately in love with her, Noble asked her to marry him. And, by the way, could he borrow some money?

He allegedly extracted her life savings over the next few months. Eventually his ardor cooled, and he admitted that something stood in the way of their marriage plans: his then-wife, Lillian. That's when Price had Noble arrested.

He protested his innocence. "This is simply a blackmailing case, and letters in the hands of my lawyers will prove that I am telling the truth," the sculptor told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The model's larceny charges against Noble were dismissed by a magistrate who said that it was a matter for a civil court.

ONE OF THE FIRST RECORDED MEMORIALS to a mother was the statue erected around 100 B.C. in Rome in the memory of Cornelia, the mother of reform-minded senators Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus.

Cornelia was the Romans' idea of the perfect mom. She gave birth to 12 children, though only three survived to adulthood. When her husband died, she devoted herself to raising the kids, refusing an offer of marriage from King Ptolemy of Egypt. She was praised for her maternal skills, which to the Romans meant creating well-spoken, politically active citizens.

The story goes that a nouveau riche acquaintance once came to Cornelia's house and showed off her lavish jewelry. Cornelia kept the woman talking until her two boys came home from school, whereupon she said of them, " These are my jewels." History does not record whether Cornelia's guest then said, "Oh go suck a lemon, you sanctimonious prig."

Then there's Anna Jarvis, the West Virginia woman responsible for organizing the first U.S. Mother's Day. "When my own mother died," Jarvis once explained, "I felt I wanted to carry on in some way her 'mother spirit,' and I thought this could best be done by having a day set apart to honor all mothers, and through them all womanhood."