This triumphant female form is a celebration of Isabel Dutaud Nagle Lachaise (1872–1957), wife of Gaston Lachaise and inspiration behind much of his work. Artist Louise Bourgeois wrote in 1992 of Lachaise’s obsession with Isabel as a subject, “It is in these works that Lachaise expresses his deepest emotion about woman—as mother, as lover, as ideal, as god.” Beginning in 1912, Lachaise worked on this sculpture for 15 years to get his vision of an idealized woman just right. The artist’s dedication to his wife reflects shifting cultural norms around gender and marriage in America in the 1910s and 1920s. At that time, affection and attraction rather than economic need or religious belief became the basis for many marital partnerships.