Footnotes

Provenance
Private collection, Tuxedo Park, New York.
Gifted to the late owner from the above, great-neice of the above, circa 1960.

Literature
Montross Gallery, Exhibition: Painting by Robert Vonnoh, Sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1913, n.p., no. 105, another example listed.
J.C. Glasier, "Art School Pupils Win Prizes," Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 18, 1916, no. 170, Cosmopolitan Photo Plays Section, p. 5, another example listed.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of The First Exhibition of Work by The Alumni of The Art Institute of Chicago, exhibition catalogue, Chicago, Illinois, 1918, n.p., no. 804, another example listed.
Springfield Art Association, Exhibition of Sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh, N.A., Exhibition of Paintings by Robert Vonnoh, N.A., exhibition catalogue, Springfield, Illinois, 1922, n.p., no. 9, another example listed.
J. Aronson, Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2008, pp. 166-68, fig. 65, no. 28, other examples illustrated.

Bessie Potter Vonnoh's The Intruder was designed in 1913 as a table fountain and was meant to be used in a garden around plant life with its basin filled with a bath of water. The sculpture is simple and alluring in design, depicting a demure female figure whose bathing ritual has been interrupted by an alert turtle on the opposite side of the basin. The female figure is modeled characteristically with slender arms and shown wrapped in a long gown with heavy folds of drapery that cling to her body. Both the figure and the turtle were cast separately and attached to the basin after casting. In piped examples of the sculpture, water flowed from a small spout by the woman's foot into the basin creating a calm movement of water. Vonnoh intended the bronze basin to sit in the center of a larger one constructed of marble, explaining when it was shown at the Carnegie Institute that "it was my intention to have the outer space filled with low growing ferns and the basin with water." (as quoted in J. Aronson, Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2008, p. 168) During the early part of the 20th century, table fountains were a highly admired form of household ornamentation that were desired for their extravagance, the magical qualities the sound of flowing water, the way light reflected off the wet bronze surfaces, and for the playful subjects they often depicted.