Blanche Nevin

Blanche Nevin (1841–1925) was an American artist and poet. She is considered America's first noteworthy woman sculptor, and is best known for her sculpture of Revolutionary War General Peter Muhlenberg in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection. Early life and education She was born at Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Dr. John Williamson Nevin (1803–1886), a theologian, teacher, and minister, and Martha Jenkins. She moved with her family to Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1855, when her father became the president of Franklin & Marshall College. She studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Joseph Alxis Bailly, at the Royal Art Academy in Venice, Italy, and at Carrara, Italy. She also traveled to China and Japan. She usually spent half her year at her home Windsor Forge Mansion and the other half abroad. Career and mid-life She exhibited a marble statue of Maud Muller at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. She exhibited it again at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, where it was placed in the Woman's Building's Rotunda. The statue is now owned by the Iris Club in Lancaster.