Art Institute of Chicago

Ginevra

Hiram Powers (American, 1805–1873)

Date

1865–68

Medium

Marble

Culture

Florence

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This statue depicts the title character of the poem “Ginevra,” from the 1822 book Italy by the English poet Samuel Rogers. In the poem, 15-year-old Ginevra disappears on her wedding night; her remains are discovered 50 years later in a chest, where she had hidden as a prank and accidentally trapped herself. Tragic literary heroines were popular subjects for 19th-century sculptors and painters because they appealed to the melodramatic and moralistic sensibilities of Victorian society. Two other works, Elaine (1917.3) by Toby Rosenthal and Nydia, The Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii (1896.77) by Randolph Rogers, more explicitly express similar themes. Hiram Powers presented Ginevra with a paucity of narrative details, however, with only the title offering evidence of her identity.

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