| TITLE
| Mary Wollstonecraft |
| CREATOR | Shure, Robert (Skylight Studios) |
| DATE | 2020 |
| DIMENSIONS | 27.5 x 14 x 11 in. |
| ORIGINAL FORMAT | Sculpture |
| MEDIUM | Plaster |
| DONOR | Hayden Special Collections Development Fund |
| DATE OF ACCESSION | 2020 |
| LOCATION | Providence Athenæum: Main Library |
In 2019, the Athenæum commissioned an original bust of Mary Wollstonecraft [1759-1797], English writer, philosopher, and pioneer of women’s rights, by artist Robert Shure of Skylight Studios, Woburn, MA. The bust was modeled after the painting of Wollstonecraft completed in 1797 by John Opie [1761-1807], for which she sat while pregnant with her daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly (née Godwin) [1797-1851]. This is the first known sculpture of Wollstonecraft in North America.
Wollstonecraft was born in London, the second of seven children in an unstable family environment. She left home at the age of 19 to earn her own livelihood and to pursue work as a writer. Wollstonecraft became immersed in the radical intellectual circles of London, and traveled to Paris in support of the French Revolution. Her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), explores the concept of educational equality between the sexes, and is still considered a foundational work of feminist philosophy.
After a relationship with Gilbert Imlay, American businessman and diplomat to the U.S. embassy in France (with whom she had a daughter, Fanny Imlay), Wollstonecraft married the philosopher and writer William Godwin. In 1797 she gave birth to their daughter, Mary (the future author of Frankenstein), and died from complications of childbirth. Although her posthumous reputation initially suffered as a result of a biography published by her husband that exposed her “immoral” lifestyle, her revolutionary work became a cornerstone treatise to future advocates of women’s rights.
The Athenæum commissioned two other busts at the same time: those of Frederick Douglass and Louisa May Alcott.