HOSMER, HARRIET GOODHUE

born Oct. 9, 1830, Watertown, Mass., U.S. died Feb. 21, 1908, Watertown American sculptor, one of the leading women sculptors working in Rome in the 19th century and perhaps the only one to win complete financial independence by her artistic work. Hosmer was encouraged by the actress Fanny Kemble to pursue her natural talents in the art of sculpture. She established a studio at home and made what progress she could on her own, and she furthered her knowledge of anatomy by taking private lessons at the medical school of St. Louis University in Missouri. In 1852 she traveled to Rome to study under the British sculptor John Gibson while living under the care of another older friend, the actress Charlotte Cushman. While slowly developing as an artist, she also became a favourite in the English and American colonies in Rome, numbering Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning among her friends. In 1856 Hosmer delivered her first commissioned work, Oenone, to the father of a former classmate in St. Louis, and in 1857 her second, Beatrice Cenci, went to the St. Louis Mercantile Library. Her next piece, an amusing figure of Puck, proved a great success: 50 copies were sold, including one to the prince of Wales (later Edward VII). In 1860 she was commissioned by the state of Missouri to produce a monumental bronze statue of Senator Thomas Hart Benton; the finished work was placed in Lafayette Park, St. Louis, in 1868. In 1862 Hosmer exhibited Zenobia in London with great success, and in 1865 her Sleeping Faun was purchased by Sir Benjamin Guinness for the city of Dublin. Other notable works of the period were Walking Faun, Browning Hands, Death of the Dryads, Siren Fountain, and Heroine of Gaeta, a figure of the queen of Naples unveiled in 1871. Until the end of the century Hosmer lived mainly in England, making frequent visits to Rome. She maintained a large studio and enjoyed a considerable income from her work. Her position as the foremost American woman sculptor of the century was unchallenged, although critical estimation of her neoclassical style never afterward placed her in the first rank of artists. Her last major work was a statue of Queen Isabella of Spain commissioned by the city of San Francisco and unveiled there in 1894. From roughly 1900 she lived in Watertown, Massachusetts. Additional reading Dolly Sherwood, Harriet Hosmer, American Sculptor, 18301908 (1991).