Mercury and Turtle
Albert E. Harnisch American
Little is known about Harnisch's career as a sculptor. He was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied with the French sculptor Joseph A. Bailly. Before establishing a studio in Rome in 1869, he exhibited several works at the Pennsylvania Academy, including "Mercury and Turtle" in 1862. That may have been a plaster model, which the sculptor then took to Italy with him, and translated to marble in 1879. The youthful Mercury, identified by his cap sits with head bent, peering downward.