Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund · The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: public domain (CC0) · Museum record & image source ↗
The Sleeping Faun
Creator not recorded by the museum
- Date
- modeled 1864, carved c. 1870
- Medium
- marble
- Dimensions
- Overall: 127 cm (50 in.)
- Country / context
- United States
- Movement / tradition
- North American arts
- Collection
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Pathway
- North American arts ↗
Hosmer is the best known female member of a large group of American artists working in Italy during the mid-1800s. The Sleeping Faun, a depiction of a pointed-eared woodland spirit, demonstrates her mastery of the neoclassical style, which was inspired by the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Hosmer’s playful sense of humor infuses the composition: a half-human, half-goat satyr mischievously ties the unwitting faun’s animal skin garment to a tree stump.
Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?
Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.
