Modern · Smithsonian American Art Museum · saam_1968.140
Fisher Girl
William Randolph Barbee, ca. 1858
Smithsonian American Art Museum · Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase · CC0 · Public domain
- Artist
- William Randolph Barbee
- Date
- ca. 1858
- Medium
- marble
- Dimensions
- 32 1/8 x 31 7/8 x 23 5/8 in. (81.6 x 80.9 x 59.9 cm.)
- Era
- Modern
Why it matters
William Randolph Barbee created Fisher Girl while working in Florence, Italy, around 1858. Barbee returned to the United States soon after and enjoyed great acclaim for this sculpture. Owing to its popularity in the United States, Fisher Girl was copied several times over the years. Barbee created the figure’s idealized body in the neoclassical style, inspired by the ancient Greek and Roman works he encountered in Italy. Her modest pose and fish net, however, are rendered in a natural, lifelike way that charmed Barbee's early audience. One contemporary critic from the New York Leader described the mesh Fisher Girl holds as "one of the most perfect triumphs of the chisel."