Ariadne
Chauncey Bradley Ives
modeled 1852, carved 1853
America
Marble
86.477
As told in ancient myth, Ariadne, the beautiful daughter of King Minos, helped her beloved Theseus escape a labyrinth and then sailed with him to the island of Naxos, where he deserted her. Chauncey Ives depicts Ariadne with her eyes downcast, forlorn in her abandonment. But those familiar with the story know her grief is short-lived. When Bacchus, the god of wine, spots her on Naxos, he immediately falls in love with her and the two wed happily.
Bust of Diana
Hiram Powers
modeled 1852
America
Marble
86.503
The lunar crown and the leather strap decorated with arrows identify this figure as Diana, the ancient Roman goddess of the moon and the hunt. Celebrated in mythology for her chastity and bravery, she appealed to 19th-century American audiences as an emblem of female virtue and independence. After Hiram Powers completed the original bust in Rome for a Boston patron, he received many requests for replicas like this one.
Clytie
William Henry Rinehart
1872
America
Marble
86.514
Clytie reflects the Neoclassical passion for ancient Roman subject matter and the idealized nude form. It depicts a mythological water nymph who fell in love with the sun god Apollo. When the god rejected her, the forlorn Clytie watched Apollo as he traveled across the sky for nine days straight. The gods finally took pity on her and changed her into a sunflower, a plant that always turns its face toward the sun just like the heartbroken nymph. The sunflower held by this Clytie alludes to both her coming transformation and the constancy of love.
Hero
William Henry Rinehart
modeled ca. 1858-59, carved 1874
America
Marble
86.512
Hero and her lover Leander (to the right) lived on opposite sides of the Hellespont, the narrow body of water separating modern Greece and Turkey. Each night Hero would light an oil lamp, and Leander, guided by its flame, swam to visit her. One night winds blew out Hero’s lamp, and Leander lost his way and drowned. Heartbroken, Hero leapt into the heavy seas and perished. Like many American sculptors, William Henry Rinehart worked in Rome, where tragic subjects from the ancient world easily appealed to his tourist clients.
Marguerite
William Wetmore Story
modeled ca. 1851-58, carved 1858
America
Marble
86.523
The virtuous Marguerite plucks petals from a daisy in the age-old game of “He loves me, he loves me not.” The character found many admirers in America by the 1820s, after she appeared in the play Faust by the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. On stage, Marguerite’s innocence contrasted with her lover’s dangerous desire for knowledge and power. In a sculpture gallery, William Wetmore Story’s chaste marble maiden likewise would have offered an alternative to more sensuous nudes like Hiram Powers’ Proserpine, seen to the right. Finely carved embroidery on the girl’s costume adds to the sophistication of this piece.
Proserpine
Hiram Powers
modeled 1844
America
Marble
86.505
In ancient Roman mythology, the goddess Proserpine was the beautiful daughter of Jupiter and Ceres. She was carried off to the underworld by Pluto, who wed her and made her rule alongside him in Hades. Proserpine could return to the upper earth for only a part of each year, her return visit marking the advent of spring. Powers depicts Proserpine with a crown of wheat in her hair.
This refers to her mother Ceres, who was the goddess of agriculture. The acanthus leaves that ring her shoulders soften the truncation of the sculpture's chest and arms and symbolize her immortality-her ability to escape the kingdom of death each year and return to the land of the living. Powers produced his first bust of Proserpine in 1839. Tinged with melancholy, his gently poetic evocation of the goddess proved immensely popular, and over the next three decades, he oversaw the production of more than 150 replicas.
The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds
Thomas Cole
1833-1834
America
Oil on canvas
80.30
Thomas Cole was America's first great landscape painter and the founder of the group of mid-nineteenth-century New York landscapists known as the Hudson River School. The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds is Cole's largest canvas and one of his earliest and most ambitious attempts at historical landscape painting. It was produced in New York during the winter of 1833-34, and as Cole later said, it was completed in the astonishingly brief span of "about two months; I could not afford more [time]."
The dramatic New Testament story unfolds in a sweeping nocturnal landscape struck by bursts of heavenly light. Appearing in golden light, an angel announces Christ's birth to startled shepherds in the fields below; the light surrounding the angel serves as a symbol of spiritual awakening. The shepherds, for example, represent three successively higher states of spiritual response to the angel's message, beginning with the stunned fear of the praying youth and culminating in the quiet understanding of the standing elder. Some scholars have noted that the middle shepherd bears a resemblance to Cole and may be an idealized self-portrait.
Undine Rising from the Fountain
Chauncey Bradley Ives
modeled ca. 1880-82
America
Marble
86.481
Undine, Rising from the Fountain, modeled ca. 1880–82 Marble White marble seems to dissolve into rippling wet fabric as the water nymph Undine changes from liquid to human form. Abandoned by her husband, the heartbroken nymph is seeking revenge: an embrace that will drown him with tears. Magical episodes like Undine’s metamorphosis—made famous by an 1811 German fairy tale—gave Chauncey Ives and other American sculptors valuable opportunities to show off their skills in illusionistic stone carving. Notice in particular the suggestions of Undine’s body beneath her gown and the nearly transparent veil above her head.
Woman in a Pergola with Wisteria
Tiffany Studios
ca. 1910-14
America
Leaded glass with copper foil, stain, and enamel
78.477
It was long assumed that the woman in this window was modeled after the ex-wife of Captain Joseph De Lamar (1843–1918), the millionaire who commissioned Tiffany to create this spectacular work for his Long Island home, Pembroke Estate. New research re-identifies the mysterious figure as De Lamar’s lifelong, and unrequited, love: the famous American opera singer Lillian Nordica (1857–1914).
Nordica performed the titular role of Verdi’s Aida in New York from 1894 to 1906. In her official photograph, she is draped in a manner that is strikingly similar to Tiffany’s depiction in glass. De Lamar and Nordica shared a deep friendship, and he asked her to marry him on at least two separate occasions, some 30 years apart (in 1874 and again in 1905). Although their marriage never came to pass, De Lamar’s choice of imagery attests to and immortalizes his lifelong affection for Lillian Nordica.
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