Thomas Ball (1819–1911)

THOMAS BALL (1819–1911)
Whispering Zephyr, c. 1884
Marble relief, 20 in. diameter
Signed (at lower right): T. Ball

RECORDED: Thomas Ball, My Threescore Years and Ten (1891), p. 311 // cf. William Ordway Partridge, “Thomas Ball,” New England Magazine XII (May 1895), p. 303 illus. // cf. Thomas Ball, My Fourscore Years: Autobiography by Boston Sculptor Thomas Ball (1819–1911), ed. Greta Elena Couper (1993), “Works,” p. 115, no. 57 illus. (version in The Art Institute of Chicago)

Zephyr, the Greek god of the West Wind, was a son of Aurora, goddess of the dawn. The west wind is a harbinger of Spring. Thus, Zephyr wooed Chloris, who is the goddess of flowers and personification of Spring (the Roman Flora). The most famous representation of Zephyr in art is in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Zephyr is the airborne figure at the far right, hovering over the shoulder of Chloris, identified by her attribute, the flowers sprouting from her mouth. The animism of ancient religion is reflected in the stock descriptive phrase, “whispering Zephyr.” Alexander Pope (1688–1744), a favorite source of quotable lines, includes a reference to “whispering Zephyr” in his “Essay on Man” of 1736. Zephyr was universally understood to be a benevolent force in nature, a friend to humankind. In The Marble Faun (an 1860 novel which must have been required reading for American sculptors in Italy), Nathaniel Hawthorne describes Miriam, after hearing Donatello’s confession of love, as receiving a “zephyr of a new affection, with its untainted freshness (Volume I, Chapter 9). In 1853, the popular author Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis Parton, 1811–1872), in one of the brief essays in her best-selling work, Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio, described the mind of Minnie, a person gifted with the ability to find joy and delight in the universe. For Minnie, “Sunshine and rainbows come at her bidding.... ‘Her mind to her a kingdom is!’ A golden-tinted cloud, a whispering zephyr, a twinkling star, a silver moon-beam, a rippling wave, a child’s carol, a bird’s song, a dewy flower!” This is Zephyr then, a balm and comfort.

The appeal of Ball’s subject is straightforward. The title tells the story, which is reinforced by the sparkling white purity of the marble medallion and the grace and beauty of the cherubic west wind hovering about the elegantly lovely young woman. Here Ball takes the opportunity to unite iconography, material, and execution into an expression of beauty, grace, youth, and hope that was entirely consistent with his own personal way of being in the world.