Artist’s Sleeping Daughter. 1923. Marble

The affectionately portrayed sleeping child is Amandus Adamson’s third and youngest child Maria Maddalena. The girl was born in Carrara, Italy, a city with many marble quarries, where the sculptor’s family lived.
Maria Maddalena (married name Carlsson), who was immortalised in the sculpture at the age of one, lived in Sweden as an adult and died when she was 90 years old. In 2005 she donated her father’s studio-house in Paldiski to the Estonian state. Today it houses a museum dedicated to the sculptor.

Amandus Adamson, who created the work, was one of the first Estonian sculptors. He worked primarily in St. Petersburg and at the end of his life in Paldiski.