May 9: Murals, Reading Terminal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

2023-05-09 325 The True Story of a Stone (2023), Lenka Clayton; PAFA, Philadelphia

15. On July 4th 1828 Demeter arrived in Boston and made history as the largest ancient sculpture to ever touch U.S. soil.
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16. Commodore Patterson wrote to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) offering them the headless, armless, seasick form of Demeter. PAFA accepted the offer. The fact that the sculpture had effectively been looted from a war zone did not seem to be an issue.
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17. The letter that Patterson wrote, folded and sealed with red wax, has been carefully preserved in a climate-controlled environment in the museum archives.
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18. For 45 years Demeter stood on display in PAFA's courtyard under the largest hawthorn tree in America, being rained on by its largest leaves each fall. Despite the fact that PAFA's first buildings burned in the great fire of 1845, Demeter - her own crystals formed by the intense heat and pressure of the earth's core - survived.
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19. The statue of Demeter was so highly regarded that a special plinth was built for her permanent display over the front entrance outside on the new Furness & Hewitt building (just on the other side of <-- this window). She was hoisted up onto this perch and cemented down in 1876.