Margaret Foley

Margaret F. Foley (1827–1877) was an American sculptor who worked in a Neoclassical style. In addition to sculpture, she is known for cameo carving, medallion portraits, and direct carving.

Early years Foley was born in northern Vermont in 1827 and grew up in a rural area in Vergennes, Vermont. She began with whittling and carving and became a self-taught prodigy in sculpture. The daughter of a farmhand, Foley worked as a maid in order to afford her schooling, and later became a schoolteacher. At the age of fourteen, Foley traveled to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in the spinning room of the Merrimack Corporation as a mill girl.

While working at the mill, Foley began a career as a professional cameo carver in both shell and lava. She learned this trade at Ednah Dow Cheney's School of Design for Women, which opened in 1850 to provide occupational training for single women in the domestic arts. Cameo carving, like miniature painting, was considered a suitable career for women artists due to its decorative nature and association with sentimentality. Foley continued to support herself as a cameo artist throughout her career as a sculptor, and she often received accolades for her cameos when they were exhibited.

Career

Expatriate in Rome In 1860, with the assistance of a Vermont politician who recognized her talent, she emigrated to Rome to study and grow her career as a sculptor. Marble Relief of Pascuccia, 1865 William Cullen Bryant, 1867 Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. E. H. R. Lyman, 1868 Group of the Infant Bacchus with a Kid, 1871 Portrait Relief in Profile, 1874 Fountain, 1874-1876 Mary Howitt, 1875 Cleopatra, 1876 Bust of Theodore Parker, 1877