This bronze portrait bust of Victor Herbert (1859-1924), an Irish-American cellist, composer, and conductor, is by sculptor Edmund Thomas Quinn (1868-1929), and was dedicated in 1927. This commemorative sculpture of Herbert was commissioned by ASCAP. Quinn, who trained with Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia, was a well-known sculptor of his day who received numerous public and private commissions, and also sculpted the portrait bust of Edgar Allen Poe once situated outdoors in Poe Park, the Bronx, and now on view inside Poe Cottage. The sculpture of Herbert was unveiled by his daughter Ella on November 29, 1927 in a lavish ceremony presided over by Arthur S. Middleton, President of the Dramatists League. Among the numerous dignitaries attending were Mayor James J. Walker, Manhattan Parks Commissioner Walter H. Herrick, and composers Arthur Hammerstein and Irving Berlin. In 1936 the Herbert monument was refurbished, and in 1992 the Central Park Conservancy again conserved the statue. In 1995 the Victor Herbert Foundation established a sculpture maintenance endowment. Today, standing a stone's throw from some of Herbert's finest moments on the Central Park Concert Mall, the restored monument is a testament to a titan of American popular song.
