Morgan Martin
Head of Department
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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW YORK
Lot 66
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth(1880-1980)Gloucester Eagle 13 in. (33 cm.) high
18 November 2021, 14:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$16,562.50 inc. premium
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Aaron Anderson
Specialist, Head of Sale
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980)
Gloucester Eagle
inscribed 'HARRIET W. FRISHMUTH Sc. / © 1916' (on the base) and inscribed and stamped 'GORHAM CO FOUNDERS QAIK' (on the base)
bronze with brown patina
13 in. (33 cm.) high
Modeled in 1914; cast circa 1916-20.
inscribed 'HARRIET W. FRISHMUTH Sc. / © 1916' (on the base) and inscribed and stamped 'GORHAM CO FOUNDERS QAIK' (on the base)
bronze with brown patina
13 in. (33 cm.) high
Modeled in 1914; cast circa 1916-20.
Footnotes
Provenance
Sale, Doyle, New York, November 30, 2005, lot 292.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Literature
Gorham Company, Bronze Division, Bronze Division Papers: Casting Records of Statuary and Small Bronzes Owned by Sculptors, Identification Assigned to Statuary and Bronzes, 1906-1930, New York, 1916, p. 185, no. QAIK, another example listed.
J. Conner, L.R. Lehmbeck, T. Tolles, F.L. Hohmann III, Captured Motion, The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: A Catalogue of Works, New York, 2006, pp. 22, 62, 129, 232, no. 1914:4, another example illustrated.
There are 11 known versions of Gloucester Eagle including the present work that were produced and cast by Gorham Manufacturing Company, Bronze Division between 1916 and 1920.
Gloucester Eagle is a rare example of the thematic experimentation that Harriet Whitney Frishmuth undertook during the early years of her career as a professional sculptor. The present model is one of three in a series of dexterously sculpted eagles that Frishmuth produced in an effort to test her abilities as a modeler of animal forms. The series was partially motivated by her personal interest and familiarity with the subject from her time working in Gutzon Borglum's (1867-1941) studio, as well as by the commercial opportunity provided by the commission she received from Jacob Ruppert (1867-1939), American brewer, politician, and eventual owner of the New York Yankees. Frishmuth revealed her model for the series and slight criticism of Borglum's eagles in an oral interview she gave in 1964, remarking "I happened to know a little bit about eagles because I'd modeled one on my own. And I had a very good model because my uncle, in his office, he had a large golden eagle, that he had shot on one of his hunting trips out West. And I was able to study the way the feathers went. And Gutzon Borglum's eagle's tail feathers were put on wrong." (as quoted in J. Conner, L.R. Lehmbeck, T. Tolles, F.L. Hohmann III, Captured Motion, The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: A Catalogue of Works, New York, 2006, p. 20) During the late 1910s, Frishmuth exhibited Gloucester Eagle in New York and elsewhere alongside her Small Spread Eagle of 1910 and Ruppert Eagle of 1911.