Hosmer, Harriet Goodhue (1830-1908)

US sculptor. She lived and worked in Italy and England 1852-1900, creating works such as Puck 1856 and Zenobia 1862. She kept a large studio of stonecutters busy with commissions from US, English, and European patrons, and was the first and most successful US female sculptor of her era. She returned to the USA in 1900.

Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, she was raised as a tomboy by her father. She attended school in Lenox, Massachusetts, where she made lifelong friends who encouraged her to study sculpture and anatomy.