Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson is a 1911 bronze statue of a seated Thomas Jefferson created by Karl Bitter for the Cuyahoga County Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. A 1913 marble version, approximately 50 percent larger than the Cleveland statue, is installed at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. Bronze replicas of the Cleveland statue were installed at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1915, and at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon in 1916. A plaster replica was donated to Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, New York City in 1929. Cuyahoga County Courthouse, Cleveland In 1909, Bitter was commissioned to create a bronze statue of a seated Thomas Jefferson and a bronze statue of a seated Alexander Hamilton, to flank the entrance steps to the Cuyahoga County Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio. Both works were cast by the Roman Bronze Works, and installed in 1911. The Jefferson is approximately in height. Jefferson is depicted wearing 18th-century clothes, sitting in a klismos chair and holding "papers of state in hand." According to Ferdinand Schevill, "It is a youthful and rebellious Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence who appears before us in Cleveland." James Dennis describes the statue as having a "generally rustic appearance" in contrast to the nearby Hamilton whom he sees as an "aggressive young aristocrat."