norfolkbg

features eleven, seven-foot tall statues carved from Cararra marble by Moses Ezekiel in Rome between 1879 and 1884 for William Wilson Corcoran, founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. These statues were originally designed to be set in second-story niches in the Corcoran Gallery. They depict notable painters and sculptors: Antonio Canova, Thomas Crawford, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer, Michelangelo, Bartolome Murillo, Phidias, Raphael, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens and Titian. The majority of the statues were donated to the Garden in 1962 and 1963 by Richmond residents Bruce Dunstan and Vincent Speranza.

A capital campaign that began in 2013 raised $500,000 needed to restore, preserve and present the Ezekiel sculptures and to provide for their perpetual maintenance. The Moses Ezekiel Statuary Vista Garden was rededicated in October, 2016.