Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/284

294 Whilst I am in the capital of art I will say a few words about the artists whom I have latest visited, and their studios.

The English sculptor Gibson is especially happy in imitating the antique. His figures of Pschyé have a sylphized beauty, which places them, in this respect, before the antique. But his most interesting work in my eyes, is his pupil, a young American lady, Miss Hosmer. After five years' instruction from him, this gifted girl has developed a perfectly peculiar and many-sided talent. Her many perfected statues prove this, for instance, her Hecuba, her Daphne, her Sleeping Girl—a figure intended for a sepulchral monument to the memory of a beautiful young English lady, Miss Falcony, who, when riding one day, on the banks of the Tiber, the ground suddenly giving way under her horse's feet, she was drowned; but above all is her peculiar talent shown by her Puck, the king of all naughty little boys, whom one could kiss and take a fancy to at once, as he sits there on his throne of acanthus leaves and mushrooms, and seems to throw a lizard at you. Take care! He is so full of life that—who knows if he be not actually alive?

Miss Hosmer has already executed seven copies of this charming impish boy, and has yet orders for more. She intends to make a counterpart to Puck, in the form of a girl which shall be called Topsy, after the little African child in Mrs. Stowe's excellent story of “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” Miss Hosmer has still her atelier near to that of her master. He seems to rejoice like a father over her. She is twenty-three years of age, and has a small but well-formed figure, with an