One of the few American women to take up the physically demanding and competitive art of sculpture, Harriet Hosmer settled in Rome in 1850. With access to fine Carrara marble and a supply of wealthy patrons who traveled through Rome on the Grand Tour, the city also provided a community of cultured American expatriates (among them Nathaniel Hawthorne). In The Sleeping Faun, Hosmer sought to demonstrate her mastery of the Neoclassical style. The playful work shows a mischievous young satyr tying a faun to a tree stump.