Vinnie Ream (1847-1914)

Lavinia Ellen Ream was the first and youngest female to receive a Congressional commission for a statue. In 1866 Congress shocked the art world by awarding this 18-year-old woman a $10,000 commission to execute a life-size sculpture of Lincoln for the U.S. Capitol rotunda. Because Ream had never completed a statue before, her appointment faced bitter opposition. In 1871 her Carrara marble Lincoln was unveiled to favorable reviews. Ream sculpted statues and busts of Sequoyah, Ulysses S. Grant, and Franz Liszt. She was buried in Arlington National Cemetery near her own statue of Sappho. Mathew Brady captured Ream in this romantic pose