Hand of Mrs. James Taylor

The left forearm and hand with wedding band of Margery Jane Porterfield Taylor (1847-1927), the sister of the donors. It was fashionable for wealthy Victorian women to have their hand recorded in marble by a prominent sculptor when on the Grand Tour. The Taylors were in Rome, Italy, in 1886 where they met the Richmond-born sculptor Sir Moses Ezekiel.

Moses Jacob Ezekiel was born in Richmond, Virginia, to Jacob and Catherine (deCastro) Ezekiel. He studied anatomy at the Medical College of Virginia. In 1869, Ezekiel enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy of Art (Berlin, Germany). Admitted into the Society of Artists in Berlin on the merits of his bust of George Washington, he was the first foreigner to win the Prize of Rome. He died in Italy in 1917.