Alma Mater (Missouri sculpture)

Alma Mater (1916) is a three-figure sculpture by Cyrus E. Dallin in the Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in Ladue, Missouri that was known as one of his more prominent works at the time[1] and is considered to be among his finest achievements by Kent Ahrens.

[2] The sculpture is made of cast bronze and sits on a pediment of pink Tennessee marble with a stone backing that has two ionic pilasters supporting an arching molding.

The backing panel also has a bas relief profile portrait of the honoree, Professor Edmund Sears, that is partially obstructed by the bronze figures.

[8] In 1923 Dallin would later produce a similar image as a bas-relief plaque for the Scanlan Memorial at Crosby School at 34 Winter Street in Arlington, Massachusetts.

In the Scanlan piece, Dallin has added a visible bench and substituted a standing boy for the girl on the left while keeping the other figures unchanged.

Scanlan Memorial Bronze Plaque by Cyrus Dallin 1922