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Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) model for "victory" for the first division memorial, washington, dc inscribed D.C. French with the Roman Bronze Works N-Y- foundry mark bronze, gilded height: 75in. (190.5cm.) Executed circa 1921-24. In 1921, the First Division of the American Expeditionary Force of World War I asked Daniel Chester French to design a figure representing Victory as part of a planned memorial to be placed in the square south of the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C.. Major General Charles P. Summerall requested that French create a figure to capture "that spirituality and that living appeal which will typify the spirit of triumphant sacrifice and of service of the Division's dead." The resulting sculpture, with her wings outstretched and the American flag billowing around her, is a lasting testament to those who lost their lives in service to their country and a solemn leader for those who returned home. The present work is one of two casts taken from French's 1922 model for the figure; the other cast is in the collection of the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. The final version measures nearly fifteen feet and rests atop a thirty-five foot granite column designed by the architect Cass Gilbert. Wayne Craven writes, "French's sculpture became the epitome, the final glorious outburst, of the representation of abstract concepts by personification. The latter was the heritage of a classical, Graeco-Roman-inspired outlook on the life and experience of mankind--of man's relationship to his fellow beings, to his own potential, to the forces of nature, and to the universe and the divine being that controlled his destiN0. In bried, all of these elements could be and were personified in the human figure, and the supreme master of such imagery was Daniel Chester Friench.... At the height of his long and prolific career, French had no equal in American sculpture" (Sculpture in America, New York, 1968, p. 392).