TROLLOPE

The Villa Trollope in Florence was built by Mrs. Trollope, with the proceeds from the sale of her book, The Domestic Manners of the Americans.The recipient is possibly the wife of Hiram POWERS (1805-1873) who was an American neoclassical sculptor. He was one of the first 19th-century American artists to gain an international reputation, largely based on his famous marble sculpture The Greek Slave. Fanny Trollope helped launch his career when she had him sculpt Dante's Commedia. In 1837 he moved to Italy and settled on the Via Fornace in Florence, where he had access to good supplies of marble and to traditions of stone-cutting and bronze casting. He remained in Florence till his death.Alternatively it could be to the wife of his son, the American photographer and sculptor Longworth POWERS (1835-1904) who worked in Florence in the mid 19th century.