I spent several days last week at the Sedgwick Symposium in St. Louis, devoted to the study of the 19th-century author Catharine Sedgwick and her contemporaries. The location was selected to honor Sedgwick’s sketch “The Great Excursion,” which appeared in Putnam’s Monthly in 1854. I was honored to be asked to give a plenary talk, titled “‘It is More My Home:’ Harriet Hosmer’s Journey from the Sedgwick School to St. Louis to Rome.” A bonus for me was that several of Hosmer’s works are in St. Louis, giving me a chance to visit them. All in all, a wonderful few days filled with lively, inspiring conversation (and a few local mircobrews)
The arch was just a short walk from the hotel.
Hosmer’s Beatrice Cenci at the Mercantile Library.
Cenci and rosary.
Beatrice Cenci
Cenci’s foot.
Cenci’s back and her beautiful hair.
Zenobia in Chains at the St. Louis Art Museum.
Zenobia’s hand and chain.
Zenobia’s foot.
Hosmer’s memorial to politician Thomas Hart Benton in Lafayette Square.
Plaque on memorial.
Benton Memorial from the side.
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