Seabrook "Praying Child" Monument
Location: Area A/Lot 95
Date of Placement: after 1902
Decedents: L. S. Seabrook
Monument inducted into the Hall in September 2023 (Class #3)
Location: Area A/Lot 95
Date of Placement: after 1902
Decedents: L. S. Seabrook
Monument inducted into the Hall in September 2023 (Class #3)
This appears to be a small monument of a naked child praying. In doing a little online research, I found this same design displayed in several other cemeteries such as Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York's Albany Rural Cemetery in Albany and Schenectady's Vale Cemetery, Green-Wood Cemetery in New York City Brooklyn's vast Green-Wood, and Union Grove in Canal Winchester, Ohio, Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Forest Hill in Boston, Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, and Mount Auburn (the original "rural" cemetery). Examples also appear in Ireland and England. Some of these figures were marble, one was white zinc.
Kneeling child at prayer, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Genoa-Nervi
Author Paula Lemire of a blog entitled "Beyond the Graves" wrote of this design in an April, 2016 blog:
"The little figure was originally the work of Florentine sculptor Luigi Pampaloni (1791-1847). Created around 1826, the figure was originally one of a plaster pair; a sleeping girl and a kneeling boy beside her. On a visit to Pampaloni's studio, Countess Anna Potocka commissioned a marble copy of the boy for the grave of her young daughter Julia in Krakow.
The statue, which shows a child kneeling with one knee raised and one foot tucked behind, clasped hands, an upturned face, and long curls, became quite popular and copies some appeared in gardens and cemeteries. Appealing to popular sentimental taste, plaster, alabaster, and porcelain examples could be found in parlors and drawing rooms. Some examples include wings. In some versions, the child kneels on a cushion, where others omit the cushion."
Henry Ruggles (d. 1863) grave in Brooklyn, New York's famed Green-Wood Cemetery
Bradley family monument with praying child statue atop in Vale Cemetery, Schenectady
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Anderson Monument at Albany Rural Cemetery
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This monument is not used as a larger monument topper, as can be found in many of the places mentioned above. Here it marks the grave of L. S. Seabrook, an infant who died in 1867. Not much more is known of this child belonging to William L. W. Seabrook and wife Harriet P. Seabrook. Mr. Seabrook and his family lived in Creagerstown, Annapolis and Westminster at different times.
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I venture to say that the baby, L. S. S. name could have been Luther, as that is one of his father's middle names (Luther Wesley). A few feet away n this lot, four other Seabrook children are buried under a miniature obelisk with respective names on each of four panels. Two have the name of Stanley, so perhaps that name (Stanley) could have been the "S" in L. S. Seabrook?
1870 Albany (NY) Commercial & Business Directory
This was a popular design of the era and well known to lovers of art and sculpture. Ms. Lemire, in her blog, included a few vintage newspaper advertisements in the 1870 Albany Commercial & Business Directory for monument dealers. These competing stone-carvers distinctly show "the praying child" as a familiar option for funerary art.