The Lily

Thomas Ridgeway Gould, "The Lily," before 1881.

Lilies have been highly revered and respected by the Greeks dating as far back as 1580 B.C.E. and can express sympathy, humility, wealth, prosperity, and devotion. More importantly, the lily is the flower most often seen at funerals, as the lily can also symbolize that the soul of the departed has restored innocence after death.   The subject of The Lily is either a loyal, devoted widow in mourning, or the subject herself is deceased and the bust was made in her memory.

Interestingly, this object of purity shows signs of the promiscuous activity of groping a female’s bosom. In the past, a person repeatedly touched the bare breasts of this bust and eventually oiled the area to a smoothly sheened surface. This shows the power that representational imagery holds over people’s desire for sexual fulfillment and the actions they may take to satisfy such cravings.