Melissa Dabakis, “A Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome (Penn State UP, 2014)

In A Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome (Penn State University Press, 2014), Melissa Dabakis takes readers on an unexpected journey from Boston to Rome to discover multiple American women sculptors working in studios, winning public commissions, and earning artistic renown in the mid-19th Century. The book navigates through the worlds of sculpture, feminism, American and Italian politics, slavery and abolition, expatriate circles, Roman culture, and Italian independence struggles. Dabakis illuminates the critical period from 1850 to 1876 when American women sculptors not only forged professional artistic careers but also participated in and impacted feminist and abolitionist movements.

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