The Sleeping Faun (modeled 1864, carved c. 1870): Art, History and Details

The Sleeping Faun (modeled 1864, carved c. 1870) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Harriet Goodhue Hosmer (American, 1830–1908).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Hosmer is the best known female member of a large group of American artists working in Italy during the mid-1800s. The Sleeping Faun, a depiction of a pointed-eared woodland spirit, demonstrates her mastery of the neoclassical style, which was inspired by the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Hosmer’s playful sense of humor infuses the composition: a half-human, half-goat satyr mischievously ties the unwitting faun’s animal skin garment to a tree stump.

Object facts

• Title: The Sleeping Faun
• Date: modeled 1864, carved c. 1870
• Creator attribution: Harriet Goodhue Hosmer (American, 1830–1908)
• Culture: United States
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 127 cm (50 in.)
• Collection: American - Sculpture
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1997.15

A detail from the museum

Hosmer said, "I honor every woman who has strength enough to step out of the beaten path. . . ."

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ausherman, Maria, Masters of Shape: The Lives and Art of American Women Sculptors. (Novato, CA: Goff Books, 2022).
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Major Neoclassical Marble, Rare Korean Sculpture, Other Recent CMA Acquisitions Now on View,” April 16, 1997, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Hawley, Henry H. "Hosmer's Marble Faun." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 37, no. 10 (December 1997): 4-6.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.