Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii,

after original model of 1855

The most popular nineteenth-century American sculpture, replicated a reputed 167 times in this near life-size version and especially in a three-foot reduction, <em>Nydia</em> combined drama and pathos with contemporary interest in the antique. Based on Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s literary phenomenon, <em>The Last Days of Pompeii</em> (1834), the virtuosic figure by sculptor Randolph Rogers depicts the blind girl who, with her acute sense of hearing, led Glaucus, whom she loved unrequitedly, and his lover, Ione, to safety through the ash-filled streets of Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, only to drown herself knowing her love was not reciprocated. With her hand raised to her ear, and guided by a staff around which her windblown dress dramatically swirls, Nydia makes her way through the debris-strewn city, represented by the broken Corinthian capital at her feet. In modeling the sculpture, Rogers drew upon Neoclassical tendencies in his choice of medium and subject, but enlivened his work with highly animated baroque drapery and the girl’s dynamic pose and flowing hair. The artist, based in Rome, was probably influenced in the particulars of <em>Nydia</em>’s realization by the many Classical and later sculptures on view in public and private collections there.