Daniel Chester French was born on April 20, 1850, in Exeter, New Hampshire. French was the son Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, judge, and Assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary. Though he showed a talent for drawing as a child, French didn’t discover sculpture until his late teens. After the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts, in 1867, French met artist Abigail May Alcott (sister of author Louisa May Alcott and the inspiration for Amy in Little Women). Having studied fine arts in Boston, Alcott gave French an introduction to working with clay and encouraged him to pursue a career. He went on to study with the same teachers she had – William Rimmer (anatomy) and William Morris Hunt (drawing). French then spent a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and several years in Florence, Italy, under the instruction of Thomas Ball.