Hosmer is the best known female member of a large group of American artists working in Italy during the mid-1800s. The Sleeping Faun, a depiction of a pointed-eared woodland spirit, demonstrates her mastery of the neoclassical style, which was inspired by the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Hosmer’s playful sense of humor infuses the composition: a half-human, half-goat satyr mischievously ties the unwitting faun’s animal skin garment to a tree stump.