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appeared when led in chains in the triumphal procession of Aurelian.
She searched libraries and read everything that could be found relating to that illustrious and unfortunate sovereign.
Subsequently she labored upon it with so much assiduity and anxiety that her health was impaired, and she was ordered into Switzerland by her physician to save her life.
The statue is of colossal size, seven feet in height, a very noble figure, the commanding effect of which grows upon the mind,--a triumph of patient study, of genius, and of mechanical skill.
Zenobia is represented walking.
The movement has blended lightness, vigor, and grace.
The left arm supports the drapery, which is elaborately cut; the right, without a purpose, for it can neither bless her people nor inspirit her troops, descends naturally as living muscle.
The wrists bear the chains,--not heavy and galling,--perhaps Roman severity made them weightier.
The head, crowned, is slightly bowed; the lips express disdain of the surrounding pageant of victorious foes; the eyes, downcast, and the features of oriental beauty reveal a soul self-sustained and absent, far away in memories of her magnificent empire of the East.
She is still a queen in spirit, undethroned by calamity.
In this production Miss Hosmer made a bold, and, on the part of woman, an almost unexampled, adventure into the regions of the highest historic art; and she returned wearing the laurels of success.
The statue received the highest praise.
Critics pronounced its vindication in the light of the noblest models of Grecian art, and ascribed to it legitimate claims to a place in the front rank of. works of sculpture.
We well remember the impression it made in Boston, where we were scarcely more interested in the fascinating form itself, than in observing the effect it produced on the minds of visitors who, with quiet demeanor, speaking low, appeared like persons coming unwontedly under the influence of a spiritual power
S. M. Betts and Company. Hartford, Conn. 1871.
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