La Petite Pensée
Thomas Ball American
Ball, who spent much of his career abroad in Florence, followed the lead of other expatriate American sculptors in modeling sentimental depictions of children. The posture of this youthful thinker, with her right shoulder thrust forward, is slightly coquettish, in contrast to her demure downward glance. Her off-the-shoulder dress is trimmed with lace and overlaid with stylized leaves entwined with pansies, a symbol of the Trinity. In Victorian flower language, “pansy” was the anglicized spelling of the French pensée, or “thoughtful recollection.”
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