Rare marble sculpture does not sell at auction
Chorley's AuctioneersA rare marble sculpture that was expected to fetch £18,000 at auction has not sold.
The bust from 1854 was discovered by Thomas Jenner-Fust, director of Chorley's Auctioneers, during a routine house valuation in the Cotswolds.
The family had thought it was a reconstituted stone bust but it turned out to be the work of 19th-Century artist and feminist figure, Harriet Goodhue Hosmer.
The sculpture went under the hammer at Chorley's Auctioneers in Gloucester on Tuesday but did not sell.
Hosmer was an American neoclassical sculptor born in Massachusetts in 1830, and is widely regarded as the first professional female sculptor in the United States.
She spent much of her career in Rome, where she developed an international reputation in a field that was overwhelmingly dominated by men.
Hosmer was also openly gay during a time when same-sex relationships were widely condemned, and in some places illegal.
Chorley's plans to host another auction for the sculpture in the future.
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