 The sculptures differ from common garden statues by virtue of their original intent as well as designs which were meant to be embedded into a masonry wall.Before the 1870s in the United States, architectural decoration was fairly sparse and largely consisted of wood or hand carved stone; these were both time-consuming and expensive.Experiments with terra cotta for this use were done in the 1850s; noted architects Richard Upjohn and James Renwick made the earliest use of the new material.