From the Yale Art Museum,  Artist: Chauncey Bradley Ives*, American, 1810–1894 Undine Rising from the Waters 1880 Marble 60 1/2 × 19 × 15 1/2 in. (153.7 × 48.3 × 39.4 cm) Gift of Mrs. Alice A. Allen, in memory of her father, Simon Sterne 1926.116 According to medieval lore, undines were Mediterranean sea spirits who lived as soulless mortals. In the nineteenth century, this story gained prominence through Baron Heinrich Karl de la Motte Fouqué’s popular novel Undine, in which a water spirit gains a human form and soul by marrying the mortal knight she loves. When her husband proves unfaithful, the laws of the water spirits force her to kill him. Chauncey Bradley Ives depicts the moment when the mournful Undine, cloaked in a white veil, rises like a fountain to claim her husband’s life. Exquisitely rendered, the diaphanous wet drapery is a masterful example of illusionistic carving.

Chauncey Bradley Ives (December 14, 1810 – 1894) was an American sculptor who worked primarily in the Neo-classic style. His best known works are the marble statues of Jonathan Trumbull and Roger Sherman (Roger Sherman) enshrined in the National Statuary Hall Collection.

ves was born in Hamden, Connecticut and at the age of 16 was apprenticed to Rodolphus Northrop, a woodcarver in nearby New Haven. He may also have studied with Hezekiah Augur, another local woodcarver who was a pioneer American marble carver.

Shortly thereafter Ives turned to marble carving and began carving portraits, first in Boston, Massachusetts and then in New York City.