Reflecting these classical inspirations, the winged female subject of this work wears a modified late nineteenth-century interpretation of an ancient Greek tunic, or chiton, though her loose curls, embellished with passion flowers, represent a hairstyle that was fashionable in the artist’s time. She holds up a plaque bearing the Latin words Amor Caritas, or Love [and] Charity. The model, Davida Johnson Clark, was Saint- Gaudens’s mistress and mother of their son, Louis P. Clark. Although she was named Albertina at birth, Saint-Gaudens gave her the name Davida, thus equating her beauty with that of Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo’s statue of David (1501–1504).