Niehaus was assigned two important scenes from the history of the settling of Connecticut in the two side tympana of the East façade of the Connecticut State Capitol. The entire east façade of the Capitol Building deals with the early history of the Connecticut Colony. The right-hand tympana is dedicated to John Davenport (Coventry, Warwickshire, England, 1597-1670, Boston), an English-born Congregational clergyman who embraced Puritanism and nonconformity and left England in 1633 for the Netherlands to support international Prostetantism. Davenport left Europe for America in 1637 going first to Boston with Theophilus Eaton who would become the first governor of New Haven Colony, originally founded in 1638 as the town and colony of Quinnipiac. An influencial conservative preacher, Davenport left New Haven to become help form the extreme orthodox Old South Church in Boston.
Both of these compositions are carved in shallow relief. The artist depicts spatial recession by progressively diminishing the height of the relief from the foreground to the background. Niehaus emphasizes the upper bodies of each figure, using the highest relief for the heads. No attention is given to unimportant details. By means of gestures and the placement of the few highly articulated figures, the focus of each work is made clear. The dress of the figure is that of Colonial America. The women are dressed in long, full dresses, while the men, with their rifles, wear baggy knickers and greatcoats.
State Capitol, East facade, right- hand tympanum
This Artwork
Nearby Work
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- Capitol Sculpture, East Facade: Revolutionary War and the Founding of the Republic0MI / W
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