Edmonia Lewis is best known as the first sculptor of black and Native American heritage to achieve international recognition. Born in New York to a black father and Chippewa mother, Lewis briefly studied at Oberlin College from 1860-63 before ultimately traveling to Rome in 1865 where she flourished artistically. Embraced by the American art community in Rome, particularly by fellow female sculptor Harriet Hosmer, Lewis mastered the marble medium during her time abroad. Her artistry centers primarily around historical and biblical themes, as well as those documenting Native American and black narratives.

Conceived in 1879, The Bride of Spring hails from a particularly successful period in Lewis’ career. Having recently exhibited The Death of Cleopatra at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, Lewis was both well-versed in the marble medium and confident with attempting increasingly large-scale sculptures by this point (fig. 1). Delicately enveloped in a thin veil, the present work showcases the artist’s mastery of texture and form within her desired medium. The drapery gently descends over the figure’s face, supported by a crown of roses atop her head. A secondary garland of roses and greenery cascades from the subject’s hand to her feet.

This emphasis on flowers creates an allusion to the Roman goddess, Flora, with whom Lewis was undoubtedly familiar from living abroad in Rome. Primarily associated with springtime, youth and fertility, the goddess Flora (or Chloris in Greek mythology) is frequently depicted in art and culture. Renditions of Flora transcend art historical periods and media, among them statue, fresco, and painting formats (figs. 2-4). The contrapposto pose of the bride further speaks to the classical influence that residing in Italy had on Lewis’ body of work.

In the 1870s, when Lewis modeled the present form, she was particularly interested in the challenge associated with attempting standing sculptural subjects. With works such as The Bride of Spring (1879) and Hagar (1875), she began producing larger marbles with dramatic scale that centered specifically around the narratives of women – Hagar being an Egyptian slave from the Book of Genesis (fig. 5). Sometimes biblical and other times historical in nature, Lewis’ body of work delves into subject matter that appealed to the artist’s personal history and widespread interests.

This tremendous example of Lewis’ work is first recorded as belonging to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, having been purchased from the artist shortly after its execution. Although Lewis modeled many of her forms abroad in her Italian studio where women and artists of color were more widely accepted, she frequently returned to the United States for exhibition and sales-driven purposes. The work then quietly resided in Paris, Kentucky before it was rediscovered in the Paris-Bourbon County Library by a historian who recognized the artist’s inscription. “A spectacular treasure has emerged not far from Cincinnati,” The Cincinnati Enquirer remarked at the time (The Cincinnati Enquirer, 21 July 2007, p. 51). The Bride of Spring subsequently appeared at public auction for the first time in 2007, where it was acquired by the present owner. Having remained in private hands for the past seventeen years, The Bride of Spring is a strong example in regards to both subject matter and technique by an artist who has remained largely underappreciated until recently. Although her presence is rare at public auction, sculptures by Edmonia Lewis reside in the permanent collections of several of the nation’s leading institutions, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.