Putti - Musician to Astronomer
The figures on the staircase are known as “putti” and represent the various occupations, habits, and pursuits of contemporary American life at the time when the Jefferson Building was built in the late nineteenth century.
A putto (plural putti) is a figure of a pudgy human baby, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance art.
• A Musician, with a lyre by his side, studying pages of a music book
• A Physician, grinding drugs in a mortar, with a distilling vessel beside him, and the serpent sacred to medicine
• An Electrician, with a star of electric rays shining on his brow and a telephone receiver at his ear
• An Astronomer, with a telescope and a globe, encircled by the signs of the zodiac that he is measuring by the aid of a pair of compasses