Historical Wonders: “The Mermaid’s Cradle” Sculpture

Sitting relatively incognito, in the center of Fountain Square in Larchmont Manor, is a monumental bronze statue called The Mermaid's Cradle, that is among the most remarkable public sculptures in the country.

It also has an amazing story to tell about three women: the unusual mermaid; the sculpture by Harriet Hosmer, a non-conformist who is considered by many to be the "first American female sculptor;" and Helena Flint, the benefactress whose family helped develop Larchmont.

A mermaid calls out for history

Make that four women, actually. "When we moved into a house across from the fountain in 1973, I was curious about this large statue of a mermaid who had a rather masculine body, two tails, was playing a double pipe, and lulling her baby to sleep," says Judith Doolin Spikes.

Fountain Square is formed by Linden Avenue on the north, West Fountain Square, Maple Avenue, and East Fountain Place. Carved into the base of the statue is, "H Hosmer, Rome."

Spikes was told by the librarian that there was no background on the statue, and no book on Larchmont. "Finding out about the statue got me interested in local history," says Spikes, who became the official Larchmont Village Historian in 1980 and has written three books.

At the library, Spikes remembers finding a Bill of Lading (arrival shipping invoice) dated 1894 that read, "One mermaid, one ton, $300."

But what about the beginning of the story?

Independent-minded Helena Flint

Thompson J.S. Flint, a wealthy New York City banker, and his wife Elizabeth, bought the Munro-Collins estate at auction [see this story on The Manor House], and formed Larchmont Manor Company in 1872, to subdivide the property. Helena (pronounced Heh-leena) was the youngest of their seven children.

Helena Flint, without conventional partnership of a spouse, built three grand houses in Larchmont Manor, reclaimed Cedar Island from marshland, and upon moving to California in 1915, gave the village the acreage that became Flint Park.

But in the early 1890s, in the manner of American upper class, as a young woman she traveled abroad, making the pilgrimage to the art studio of Harriet Hosmer, in Rome.

"Outrageous" American in Rome

Harriet Hosmer, born in 1830 in Watertown, Mass., worked in the Neoclassical style, traveling to Rome in 1853 to study with English sculptor John Gibson. She established herself despite notions that women were not creatively or physically capable of the demanding process of carving stone.

One account describes Hosmer—in addition to living alone—as being outspoken, outrageous, and dressed in a man's shirt, tie, and beret, in defiance of Victorian rules on female behavior. Her circle included George Eliot, George Sand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and European aristocracy.

Many of her themes were powerful female mythological subjects—Medusa, Zenobia—in rebuke to the secondary status of nineteenth-century women.

Hosmer was sculpting The Mermaid's Cradle in marble for the English estate of her lover, Lady Ashburton, when Flint visited.

Flint commissioned Hosmer to make a second version of the statue, this time in bronze, and to supervise its placement in Larchmont, in memory of Flint's father, which transpired in 1894. (The marble mermaid would later disappear from Lady Ashburton's estate.)

Mermaid in Larchmont

Flint asked architect Walter C. Hunting to redesign Church Park into Fountain Square, and provide the framework for the installation of The Mermaid's Cradle. Hunting was building the adjacent St. John's Episcopal Church. 

Rather than a typically delicate mermaid, Hosmer's carves a powerful portrayal of femininity and motherhood: a musculature and stance so strong that they seem masculine, combined with refined facial features and the frank femaleness of full breasts.

Duality is also seen in the double pipe, and two tails.

In 2009, the Brooklyn Museum brought renewed recognition to Hosmer with a show of her watercolors.

Several of Hosmer's other important works can be found in St. Louis, home to her statues of Thomas H. Benton, Oenone, and Beatrice Cenci; and in Pasadena, California, where Zenobia in Chains is owned by the Huntington Library.

This year, the fountain is not operating: a crack was found in the basin when it was turned on this spring. Sans water, the fact that The Mermaid's Cradle was a sculpture before it was a fountain is brought to clearer view.

"We're extremely lucky to have this piece of public sculpture in our community," says Spikes, "as the centerpiece of Fountain Square."

And as a reminder of the nineteenth-century women who created the majestic legacy.

Katherine Ann Samon is the author of four books, including Ranch House Style, and is on the board of the Larchmont Historical Society. Her column, "Historical Wonders," about important buildings in Larchmont and Mamaroneck, will appear twice a month on Larchmont-Mamaroneck Patch. To learn more about the author, visit her Web site.