A rare carving by Edmonia Lewis, the 1898 work "Three Native Americans in Battle," or "Indians Wrestling," soared to $287,500 at Gabriel's Auctioneers/Appraisers in Norwood, Mass., on November 29.

The 30-inch sculpture, made of white Carrara marble, came to auction from a local home.

Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1840–after 1911), whose mother was of African-American and American Indian descent, and her father Haitian, was active in Rome where she settled in 1866.

Lewis, who enjoyed great success in the 1860s through 1880s, sculpted various characters and scenes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poems. The Marriage of Hiawatha, her marble group dating from 1874, fetched $314,000 at Sotheby's in 2009.

Among Lewis' best known works is her emancipation piece, Forever Free (1867). Her monumental The Death of Cleopatra (1876) was exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and is now in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.