The Girl Who Loved Art More Than Ease

Bats, birds, toads, snakes, and beetles filled the room. Some were stuffed and mounted, and the others were either dissected or preserved in alcohol. This room was neither a museum nor a boy’s den. It was owned by a little girl known as “Happy Hatty,” and she, herself, had collected and prepared every one of its strange ornaments.

At the time that Harriet Hosmer was young, dissecting animals was not considered a proper amusement for a girl. The neighbors thought that Harriet would have been much better employed in sewing a fine seam.

Harriet’s father, an eminent physician, had his own ideas about bringing up his little girl. Dr. Hosmer wanted her to live in the fresh air and sunshine so that she would be strong and healthy. The more Harriet ranged the woods in search of specimens, the better her father was pleased.

Dr. Hosmer gave his little girl a boat, so that she could row on the Charles River, which flowed past her home. He had a Venetian gondola made for her, too, with velvet cushions and a silver prow. In fact, he thought that no gift was too rich for his little girl, so long as it would keep her in the open air.

Harriet enjoyed out-of-door life. She grew tall and strong. Her muscles became firm from much rowing. She could walk miles without being tired, and was a fearless rider. Thus, unknowingly, did this little girl, who later became a distinguished sculptor, lay a strong foundation for her life work.

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, on October 9, 1830. Even as a child she liked to play with clay and mold it into shapes. In one corner of the garden there was a clay-pit. Here the little girl used to go, when she grew tired of books, to fashion dogs and horses from the wet clay.

Harriet went to school in Watertown, and later attended a private school at Lenox, Massachusetts. After three years at Lenox, Harriet returned home. She then began to study drawing and modeling in Boston. Often she walked both to and from her lessons, a distance of fourteen miles. By this time, Harriet Hosmer realized that nothing made her happier than to turn formless bits of clay into beautiful objects. She felt that she would like to go still further in her work; she wanted to see some of her ideas take shape in marble.

Harriet knew that a sculptor cannot fashion life-like figures of people or animals without understanding the position and shape of the bony frame under the flesh. The decorations of her museum-like room, all those specimens that she had dissected or mounted as a child, had given her a fair start in the study of anatomy. She also studied this subject with her father. However, she realized that, if she were to be a real sculptor, she must know more about anatomy. She consequently looked about for a school where she might study.

The Boston Medical School would not accept this eager young student because she was a girl, but Harriet Hosmer was not a person to be daunted by one refusal. She was finally admitted to the St. Louis Medical College where she had a very thorough course in anatomy. After she had completed this course, she returned home and began to work seriously in a studio which her father had fitted up for her in his garden.

A beautiful girl representing Hesper, the evening star, was the subject that Harriet Hosmer chose for her first original statue. From a solid block of marble she had a workman knock off the corners. As he was not accustomed to working for sculptors she did not allow him to go within several inches of the part that she was to cut. All the rest of this difficult work she did with her own small hands.

For eight or ten hours a day she chipped away at the block with chisel and a leaden mallet weighing four pounds and a half. Muscles made strong and flexible by much rowing and other exercises enabled her to keep up this hard work day after day. The block of marble was finally turned into the head of a lovely maiden, her hair entwined with poppies and a star on her forehead.

Beautiful as was this head of Hesper, Harriet Hosmer felt that she must study more. She was very desirous of entering the studio of John Gibson, a noted English sculptor who was then residing in Rome. Now Mr. Gibson, hearing that Miss Hosmer was young and rich, feared that she might be easily discouraged before real difficulties. However, as soon as he saw the daguerreotypes of her “Hesper,” the great sculptor said to her father, “Whatever I can teach her, she shall learn.”

At the very beginning of her work with Mr. Gibson, Harriet Hosmer showed him that she was not the sort of girl who gives up easily. The iron rod in a clay copy of the Venus de Milo which she had modeled in order that her teacher might have an idea of her work snapped, and the figure fell to pieces. However, without stopping to complain, she started at once to make another model.

Harriet Hosmer continued to work steadily with John Gibson. Then one day a message came from her father stating that he had lost his fortune and could no longer send her money. Miss Hosmer sold her fine saddle horse, and took an inexpensive room for herself. Now she was actually to work for her living.

Miss Hosmer became an important figure in the art and literary circles in Rome. She numbered among her friends the Brownings, Hawthorne, the Thackerays, and many other interesting people.

In the years that followed, many a beautiful statue emerged from unshaped marble through the transforming touch of Harriet Hosmer’s hands. Her statue “Puck” shows a merry little elf, sitting cross-legged on a toadstool, his left hand resting upon a lizard, his right, clasping a beetle. Some of her other important statues are “Œnone,” “Beatrice Cenci,” “Sleeping Faun,” and a statue of Thomas H. Benton. “Zenobia in Chains,” which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is the most famous of all. This is a colossal statue, representing the beautiful Queen of Palmyra taken prisoner by the Roman Emperor Aurelian.

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer so loved to watch beauty grow under her fingers that she was willing to give up the care-free, easy life that she might have had as the child of a rich man. Because she developed her talent through hard, serious work, she won for herself a high place among the sculptors of America.