This work depicts the moment in the Old Testament when the young widow Ruth first notices Boaz as he works in his fields. The two would soon fall in love and marry. Ruth Gleaning was extraordinarily popular, and Randolph made more than thirty replicas. He first rendered it in 1850. Demand for the sculpture continued through the years following the Civil War, as many women who had lost husbands hoped to rebuild their lives. Rogers made this version around 1867, just two years after the war’s end.