Daniel Chester French's Spirit of Life, a 1914 sculpture, greets visitors in the heart of Congress Park. Commissioned as a memorial to the Wall Street financier Spencer Trask (1844–1909), Trask was a summer resident here and a founder of the committee charged with renewing the city’s reputation as a health resort. The commission came from George Foster Peabody, a friend of Trask’s, and the setting was designed by Henry Bacon, who collaborated with French on the Lincoln Memorial.
Take in the figure: a winged woman, her hands moving high above her head, conceived as Hygieia, the giver of health, who in Greek and Roman art usually appears alongside her father, Asklepios, the god of medicine. The model has been said to be Audrey Munson but recent Daniel Chester French scholarship shows that Hettie Anderson posed.
Notice how the statue stands on a shallow niche of white marble, with a balustraded terrace above and an oblong lagoon set in marble below. The ensemble is framed by verdant shrubbery, green lawns, and a wealth of flowers. Notice the white marble niche, the balustraded terrace, and the marble lagoon framed by lawns and flowers.