Sketch of "General Mormon"

Graphite on Paper

10 1⁄2 x 8 1⁄2 in.

Mormon, Chapter 1

In this portrait of General Mormon, Friberg has depicted an older Mormon, during his second campaign as the supreme commander of the doomed Nephite forces. For Mormon’s attire, Friberg was looking directly at the famed Renaissance armorer Filippo Negroli (Milan, c. 1510-1579), whose sculptural armor, produced for Emperor Charles V, were more works of art than implements of war. Friberg would have been familiar with the Bourgonet (1543) helmet, a masterpiece of Renaissance metalwork, from his time as an art student in New York.