246 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
CLOSE VIEWS OF LEA MEMORIAL AND ITS 
FIGURE OF • HISTORY. ” 
A. Stirling Calder, Sc. 
suits the character of the monument or the monument is 
appropriate to the place is not given the attention it de- 
serves as the most important consideration involved in the 
erection of both public and cemetery monuments. 
The Lea memorial illustrated on this and the preceding 
page is erected on a terrace in East Laurel Hill Ceme- 
tery, Philadephia, overlooking the Schuylkill River. The 
granite used is a rare variety of Deer Island, Maine, gran- 
ite of a delicate warm color and the bronzes, cast by the 
cire perdue process by the Roman Bronze Works of 
Brooklyn, have been given a golden brown patine. The 
steps on the left are to be rebuilt in granite. 
The sloping lot about 20 feet square has been enclosed 
by simple granite copings of classic design abutting 
against the retaining wall of the upper terrace. In the 
center of the composition, seated before a shallow circu- 
lar niche bounded by a great laurel wreath and spread- 
ing flambeaux in bronze is a beautifully wrought figure 
of “History” holding like a sentinel, lost in revery, the 
great tome and guarding the four tombs that front her, 
two on each side, below. The figure and accessories are 
examples of the sculptor’s conviction that modern prob- 
lems in sculpture involving the use of classic themes must 
be conceived and wrought in the spirit of individual char- 
acter as to composition, type and treatment. The forms 
based on fact — enriched by fancy — restrained only by the 
conditions that constitute the problem. This applies as 
well to the architecture, the details of which were first 
designed in plastic form, then studied by the architects — • 
finally carved from the sculptor’s full size models. Zant- 
zinger, Borrie, and Medary of Philadelphia were the as- 
sociated architects who have collaborated admirably in the 
architecture of this fine memorial. 
