Many neoclassical sculptors took their themes from literature, both historical and contemporary. It is not surprising, then, that they would also produce portraits of writers, as the great Massachusetts-born sculptor William Wetmore Story does here of the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Browning’s downward gaze implies contemplation and even melancholy, fitting attributes considering that the bust was created posthumously: it was commissioned by Browning’s family shortly after her death.

Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson for the Boston Athenæum