Undine

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Joseph Mozier initially pursued a career in business before turning to sculpture in the 1840s and ultimately becoming an active participant of the emerging American neoclassical movement in Rome. He studied in Florence and Rome, specializing in subjects exploring literary and mythological themes. His career flourished in Italy, where his work gained acclaim for its technical finesse and poetic sensibility.

This technically accomplished marble, titled Undine, was inspired by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s early 19th-century eponymous novella. Undine, a spirited water nymph, gains a soul by falling in love with a human, but her tragic tale ends in sorrow and loss. Mozier’s rendition captures Undine in a moment of gentle grace and introspection, draped in flowing and seemingly damp garments that emphasize her ethereal origins and delicate beauty. The technical finesse of the carving, achieving a trompe l’oeil-like effect, was already part of a broader artistic tradition in Italian statuary originating in the 18th century. In the 19th century, contemporaries of Mozier explored the style to considerable acclaim, including Raffaelle Monti’s Veiled Vestal (1847) and Giovanni Battista Lombardi’s Veiled Woman (1869) now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1984.463).

Mozier was part of a broader community of American sculptors working in Italy, among them Chauncey Bradley Ives (d. 1894), who also produced a version of Undine, titled Undine Rising from the Fountain (circa 1880–82, see Tolles, loc. cit.). Ives’s iteration portrays the exact moment when the water spirit becomes human, emerging dramatically from a fountain. Ives's Undine emphasises movement and transformation whereas Mozier’s evokes a serene and contemplative figure. Mozier and Ives, while disparate in style and emphasis, contributed significantly to the neoclassical tradition in American art. Undine won a grand prize in Rome in 1867, marking a high point in Mozier’s career. Another example of Undine, dated 1886, is currently conserved in the permanent collection of Colby College, Maine.