Henry B. Hyde

John Quincy Adams Ward

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This statuette is a reduction after a portrait statue of Henry B. Hyde (1834–1899), founder of the Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1859. In 1901, on the second anniversary of Hyde's death, the bronze was unveiled in the Equitable building at 120 Broadway in New York. This vigorous and realistic depicts Hyde in modern-day attire, and its success inspired the Equitable to authorize casting of at least eighty-one statuettes between 1901 and 1903. The Metropolitan’s is one of the first six, all cast in 1901.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art