Moses Jacob Ezekiel: Memoirs from the Baths of Diocletion

Wayne State University Press, 1st edition. Hardcover. Fine. "Moses Jacob Ezekiel was the first American-borm Jewish artist to achieve international recognition. A child of the South, born in Richmond, Virginia, and a graduate of the Virginia Military Academy, he served in the Confederacy in the Civil War, and became an intimate friend of General Robert E. Lee and Mrs. Lee soon after the war. ...Still a young man, Ezekiel traveled to Europe in 1869 to study sculpture in Berlin. His talent and the international acclaim it won remained for many years uncompensated, although contemporary critics praised him as the greatest talent since Michelangelo. ...Ezelkiel settle in Rome, where he became an intimate of many of the celebrated artists and political figures of the late 19th century... Ezekiel's colorful personality, his love of gossip, his unfailing curiosity about the world in which he lived, and his often magisterial opinions about the issues of contemporary society give his memoirs unique importance as a cultural document of the period."" [Dust Jacket]