Demosthenes

In the early 1800s, many American sculptors went to Italy, drawn by the abundance of marble quarries, trained stonecutters, and collections of ancient masterpieces. In 1835 Thomas Crawford settled in Rome, where he developed a lucrative business making copies of Roman antiquities for visitors on the Grand Tour. His bust of Demosthenes (384–322 b.c.), the Greek orator and statesman, is after the ancient version in the Vatican Museums, in Rome, while the bust of Homer (ca. 8th century B.C.), representing the author of the Odyssey and the Iliad, is after the Hellenistic so-called Blind Homer portrait in the Capitoline Museums. The original "blind" portrait was a product of the imagination, as Homer’s true appearance was unknown.