Springtime

Like many American Neoclassical sculptors, Mozier lived in Italy, where marble, trained carvers and patrons were more plentiful than in the United States. Ironically, many of the customers visiting his Rome studio would have been wealthy American on the “Grand Tour.”

Artists like Mozier were inspired by seeing ancient ruins and collections of Greek and Roman statuary first hand, not just as plaster copies or black and white photographs. They envisioned their own allegorical subjects, figures meant to represent characters from Christianity, Western myth, or even ideas and concepts. Mozier’s girl picking flowers illustrates spring. Flowers in art have a long association with women and with symbolism related to life cycles, beauty, and their beauty fading with time.