Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Beverly Farms, Massachusetts
correspondent
Anna Coleman Ladd
(Philadelphia, 1878 - 1939, Boston)
Date8 July 1920
Place MadeBeverly, Massachusetts, United States, North America
MediumInk on paper
ClassificationsManuscripts
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberARC.002398
eMuseum ID719582
EmbARK ObjectID29103
TMS Source ID12692
Last Updated8/9/24
Status
Not on viewWeb CommentaryThis letter is from Isabella's friend, the sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd (1878-1939). In this letter from the summer of 1920, Ladd discusses her time spent in France sculpting facial prosthetics for seriously wounded World War I veterans. She notes that pausing her career to do this work cost her commissions; once back in the United States, she did not have much work. However, she writes to Isabella that creating these prosthetics was "better work than ever in my life before." She describes her work with the wounded soldiers as one small way to remedy the evils of war and restore "youth, which has been nearly swept away in the late hellish upheaval."
MarksNotesMarked in pencil (recto, upper right): 8
