Portrait Bust of Dr. John Green
Artist
B.H. Kinney
(American, 1821 - 1888)
Date1853
Mediumwhite marble
Dimensions58.4 cm (23 in.)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of Samuel Swett Green, Dr. John Green and James Green
Object number1904.62
Label TextThere were three generations of men named John Green who served as Worcester physicians in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The subject of this bust is Dr. John Green III (1784-1865), who graduated from Brown University in 1804 and began medical training with his father in 1807. He retired from medicine in 1855 because of declining health. As the bust indicates, Dr. Green was also a man of letters. Today he is remembered as a founder of Worcester's Free Public Library, having given 12,000 volumes and $30,000 towards its establishment.
B. H. Kinney was a gravestone cutter, sculptor and cameo carver. He spent most of his early life in Sunderland, Vermont, but by the early 1840s he and his brother Charles (1818-1911) had marble yards in Worcester and Barre, Massachusetts. By 1845 the business was consolidated in Worcester. Following the Civil War, B. H. Kinney closed the yards and focused his attention on sculpting, and he portrayed many noted Worcester citizens in either busts or cameos. His obituary noted that "Mr. Kinney's disposition was crowded with the sturdy New England honesty which can not flatter, and this often shows in his work, which he rarely ever idealized."ProvenanceSamuel Swett Green, Dr. John Green, James Green, Worcester MAOn View
Not on view
Hiram Powers
designed 1846; sculpted 1846–1847
