The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Bronze, dark brown sculpture of a nude child looking up and smiling, and holding a turtle by the leg in each hand. The turtles, each about the size of the child's head, hang upside down on either side. The child stands on an orb with their legs together, right big toe tilting up and over their left foot. The orb is supported on the backs of turtles, who face outward, heads tilted up.

Turtle Baby

c. 1910–16

Edith Barretto Stevens Parsons

(American, 1878–1956)
America
bronze
Overall: 104.2 cm (41 in.)
Gift of Mrs. Henry A. Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection 1923.724
Location: 000 Education Gallery

Did You Know?

Parsons created similar sculptures featuring young girls and boys with ducks, frogs, and fish.

Description

Parsons achieved renown through her garden sculptures of young children accompanied by animals, which one commentator praised for capturing “the happiness of just being alive.” In Turtle Baby, her most famous composition, the figure of the girl was modeled after her daughter. Conceived as a fountain, the sculpture has internal water conduits exiting the mouths of the four turtles circling its base.
  • Solender, Katherine. The American Way in Sculpture, 1890-1930. Cleveland, OH: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986. cat. #28, p. 32, repr.
    W. M. M. "Contemporary American Bronzes." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 10 (1919): 151-63. Mentioned: p. 153 25136326
    Gibson, Katherine. "'Michael, Rubens, and Some More of Us' In the Children’s Museum, Cleveland." The American Magazine of Art 15, no. 1 (1924): 707-10. Reproduced: p. 709; Mentioned: p. 708-09 www.jstor.org
  • The American Impressionists in the Garden. Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville, TN (organizer) (March 13-September 6, 2010); Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL (September 24, 2010-January 3, 2011); Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH (February 18-May 15, 2011).
    Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 8, 1991).
    The American Way in Sculpture 1890-1930. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 12-October 19, 1986).
  • {{cite web|title=Turtle Baby|url=false|author=Edith Barretto Stevens Parsons|year=c. 1910–16|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1923.724