Signed, one of the most prestigious works by Tomasz Oskar Sosnowski in Rome, it shows a praying, kneeling Pope, with signs of authority (a cape on his shoulders, a tiara standing on a plinth, stoles beside it). On the pedestal the inscription: "Pio IX P.M. / Anno L. ab episcopali consecratione". Behind the monument, a dedicatory plaque dedicated to the pontificate of Pius IX was placed on the marble wall. The sculpture found its way to the Lateran as a result of the artist's relationship with Pius IX, as a personal gift from the sculptor, as did his marble group 'The Deposition from the Cross', set across the vestibule of this one of Rome's most important places of worship. The statue was created on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Giovanni M. Ferretti, pope since 1846; probably on the initiative of the sculptor himself. He also portrayed Pius IX in bust at the same time, perhaps in connection with a larger full-figure sculpture being created (a plaster version survives). Sosnowski took as his model the Vatican's classicist image of Pope Pius VI, sculpted by Antonio Canova and Adam Tadolini. "The details of the sculpture's workmanship, the decorative stripes of ornament on the edges of the cope, its cloak covered with floral motifs, the patterned stole, and especially the Pope's prayerful face protruding above his folded hands, testify well to the considerable technical and expressive skills of the Polish artist" (Lechosław Lameński). The apparent randomness of the arrangement of the clothes and attributes gives a generic touch to the dignified posed figure, introducing (together with the portrait characteristics of the face) an expression typical of realism of the second half of the 19th century.