Sculpture

Ruth

Type: Sculpture(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1853
Accession number: 94.9
Maker: Chauncey Bradley Ives(Opens in new tab) (American, 1810–1894)
Dimensions: 30 × 18 × 10 in. (76.2 × 45.7 × 25.4 cm.)
Medium: marble
Description: Inspired by the Old Testament's book of Ruth, this bust of the biblical heroine was conceived by Chauncey Bradley Ives in 1853, two years after he settled in Rome. The sympathetic and human story of Ruth relates how she was married to a Hebrew immigrant in Moab and after his death left her native land and traveled with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Bethlehem. Here, she was allowed to glean the wheat fields belonging to Boaz, a wealthy farmer and kinsman of Naomi. Ruth, true to her nature, maintained, on Naomi's advice, a modest demeanor among the field hands working the harvest. One night, to show her devotion, she went and lay at the feet of Boaz as he slept in the field. So moved was he by her virtue and fidelity that he eventually married her. In depicting his figure of Ruth, Ives particularly sought to impart the concept of modesty embodied by the subject. Sensitive to Ruth's meekness, Ives designed the figure so that she looks just to the right with a downward gaze and slightly bowed head. A hint of nineteenth-century naturalism comes into play in that the piece, while portraying an ideal subject, appears to have been modeled after a real sitter, and the gathered bodice of the gown she wears resembles fashionable women's dress of the period. Yet, so ambiguous is the meaning of the sculpture, that, until recently, the figure was thought to be Ceres, the Greek goddess of agriculture, because of the wheat that is woven through her hair. However, the attribute of wheat is also often assigned to Ruth to signify her biblical role as a gleaner. Moreover, the sculptor's account book listing ideal works that he produced from 1838 to 1886 indicates that Ives executed sculptures of Ruth and none of Ceres.
Credit: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Purchased with funds from the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation
Department: American Art
Find out more: View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)

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Ives's work combined a restrained and elegant style, based on European classical and Renaissance sculpture, with subjects that imparted a moral message. This approach was shared by many other American expatriate sculptors in Italy, including Harriet Hosmer, Hiram Powers, and William Wetmore Story (whose work also is on display in this room), In the Old Testament story that inspired this sculpture, Ruth traveled to Bethlehem after the death of her husband to harvest wheat for the wealthy farmer Boaz. Boaz grew so impressed with Ruth's modesty and fidelity that he married her. Ives presents Ruth glancing downward in a gesture of humility, wearing simple clothing and unadorned save for a sheaf of wheat woven through her hair. The individualism of Ruth's facial features and the gathered bodice of her gown depart from idealized classical sculpture and suggest that Ives based his Ruth on a studio model who wore fashionable mid-19th century dress.

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