1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mead, Larkin Goldsmith

MEAD, LARKIN GOLDSMITH (1835–  ), American sculptor, was born at Chesterfield, New Hampshire, on the 3rd of January 1835. He was a pupil (1853–1855) of Henry Kirke Brown. During the early part of the Civil War he was at the front for six months, with the army of the Potomac, as an artist for Harper’s Weekly; and in 1862–1865 he was in Italy, being for part of the time attached to the United States consulate at Venice, while William D. Howells, his brother-in-law, was consul. He returned to America in 1865, but subsequently went back to Italy and lived at Florence. His first important work was a statue of Ethan Allen, now at the State House, Montpelier, Vermont. His principal works are: the monument to President Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois; “Ethan Allen” (1876), National Hall of Statuary, Capitol, Washington; an heroic marble statue, “The Father of Waters,” New Orleans; and “Triumph of Ceres,” made for the Columbian Exposition, Chicago.

His brother, William Rutherford Mead (1846–  ), graduated at Amherst College in 1867, and studied architecture in New York under Russell Sturgis, and also abroad. In 1879 he and J. F. McKim, with whom he had been in partnership for two years as architects, were joined by Stanford White, and formed the well-known firm of McKim, Mead & White.