Harnadryade

This life-size sculpture in terracotta portrays a hamadryad, a female tree spirit in Greek mythology. A faithful copy of a marble sculpture made by French sculptor Antoine Coysevox in 1709, like the other terracotta sculpture displayed on the other side of the hall, this statue was likely produced in France in the second half of the 19th century by a company specializing in reproductions for the American market. Henry Huntington purchased this statue from a New York firm of decorators in 1910. He was assured by the president of the company that it had been discovered in a neglected garden of an ancient castle in the French countryside by American novelist Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, during an automobile tour in France in 1906.