Education
Mozier's Old Testament figures include "Queen Esther, " of which at least two copies were sold in the sixties, "Jephthah's Daughter, " "Rebecca at the Well, " "Rizpah, " now in seclusion at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and the marble group of the "Prodigal Son, " owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Career
Like the sculptors Gould and MacDonald, he gave up business to devote himself wholly to sculpture.
He went to Italy and made some preliminary studies in Florence.
In 1845 he established himself in Rome, where he spent the rest of his life, aside from at least one visit made to his native land to show his works in the Tenth Street Studio, New York.
In his day, the theme in a work of art was regarded as particularly important.
Of his "Il Penseroso, " Miltonic in derivation, a life-size draped female figure in marble, one copy is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. , and one is in Horticultural Hall, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.
His "Peri, " representing another poetic theme, is in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tenn.
Of all his works, this group is the most ambitious and impressive.
Samuel Osgood, writing in 1870, commented: "Mozier deals chiefly with subjects of feeling.
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He designs somewhat in the tone of Thompson's 'Seasons. '
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He studies faithfully, and is content with completing one statue each year" (post, p. 422).
In 1878, Clark enthusiastically included the "Prodigal Son" in Great American Sculptures.
Few of Mozier's critics were as severe as Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, friendly enough toward Powers and Harriet Hosmer, was not attracted by the art of "Mr. --, " as he cautiously designated Mozier; admitting meanwhile that "Mr. -- is sensible, shrewd, keen, clever nor did I hear a single idea from him that struck me as otherwise than sensible. "
Two well-known works were the companion pieces, "Truth" and "Silence, " formerly seen in the Lenox Library, New York City, and the oft-repeated "Pocahontas. "
His "Undine, " which won the grand prize in Rome in 1867, was acquired by the University of Dayton in 1930 (Dayton News, Mar. 16, 1930).
[Rodman J. Sheirr has an article on Mozier, with eight illustrations, in Potter's Am.
Monthly, Jan. 1876.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his Italian Note-Books (1858), vol.
I, pp. 154-56, gives a penetrating contemporary description of Mozier's productions and personal characteristics.
From another point of view, Samuel H. Osgood, in "Am.
H. T. Tuckerman, in his Book of the Artists (1867), and Wm. J. Clark, Jr. , in Great Am.
Sculptures (1878), give additional data.
C. E. Fairman's Art and Artists of the Capitol of the U. S. (1927) has a note, p. 317, on "Il Penseroso. "
Lorado Taft, The Hist.
of Am.
The Art Jour.
(London), Apr. 1, 1859, has a comment on the "Prodigal Son" and on Jan. 1, 1871, an obituary.
For other obituaries see the Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 24, 1870, and the N. Y. Times, Oct. 30, 1870. ]
Views
Most of Mozier's themes had a strong literary or historic or anecdotic appeal, and both critics and clients appraised his output first of all from the point of view of the subject.
Connections
Although he entered business in New York City, he is said to have spent much of his early manhood in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and to have married there.
The emotion of the moment of meeting is well rendered in the action of both figures; the laborious carving of the details of the father's costume does not materially impair the effect of the whole.