Artwork Details
- Title
- Hope
- Artist
- Date
- modeled 1866
- Location
- Dimensions
- 28 1⁄2 x 19 1⁄2 x 11 3⁄4 in. (72.5 x 49.4 x 29.7 cm)
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase in memory of Ralph Cross Johnson
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- marble
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Allegory — quality — hope
- Dress — historic — classical dress
- Object Number
- 1968.155.27
Artwork Description
Hiram Powers sculpted this marble bust to personify Hope. A pious patron commissioned it, along with two others representing Faith and Charity, to embody the central virtues of Christianity.
Representing an abstract, positive attribute as an idealized White woman in marble was a common convention in nineteenth-century European and American sculpture. In such instances, the flawless material whiteness of marble became associated with racialized whiteness and its presumed moral superiority.
Label text from The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture November 8, 2024 -- September 14, 2025
The three busts Hope, Faith, and Charity were commissioned by Marshall Woods, a prominent figure from Rhode Island. In 1852 he visited Hiram Powers’s studio and requested a pair of ideal sculptures. Powers did not act on this, however, and on a second trip to Florence fourteen years later Woods repeated his request. Powers persuaded him to commission three statues instead of two, of the Christian virtues faith, hope, and charity. All three figures have the same composed expression, but Powers created different emotions by altering the direction of each woman’s gaze: Hope looks to the side in anticipation, Faith lifts her head with confidence, and Charity stares straight ahead in contemplation.