The group commissioned the statue from sculptor Harriet Hosmer, herself a member of the Queen Isabella Society. Hosmer completed the statue, but the Isabellas did not have the funds to purchase it. She rejected an offer from Bertha Palmer to purchase the statue for the Woman's Building and instead sold it to Harriet Williams Russell Strong who had it placed outside the Pampas Place of the California Building at the World's Columbian Exposition.