Ladies of Stone

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Sculpted in 1889, the allegorical young women "Navigation" (holding a ship's rudder) and "Enlightenment" (holding a lantern) are strangely proportioned because they were meant to be seen from far below, perched atop the high roof of Pittsburgh's Federal Building. When the building was demolished in 1966 the "Stone Maidens" (as they were originally called) were rescued and eventually parked in front of the city's Children's Museum, where they now beckon passers-by from a sidewalk. Enlightenment once held something else in her upraised right hand, but no one is alive who remembers what it was.