FREDERIC AUGUSTE BARTHOLDI (1834-1904)

Details

FREDERIC AUGUSTE BARTHOLDI (1834-1904)

A Bronze Figure of Christopher Columbus

inscribed PRESENTED TO WILLARD P. WHITLOCK BY HIS ASSOCIATES AND DEPARTMENT MANAGERS ON THE COMPLETION OF 40 YEARS IN THE CORDAGE BUSINESS AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM AND RESPECT FOR HIS HONESTY, INTEGRITY, CALM JUDGEMENT AND SAFE, CONSERVATIVE BUSINESS METHODS WHICH HAVE ESTABLISHED THE WHITLOCK CORDAGE COMPANY ON A FOUNDATION OF ROCK. 1877 ^.1917 and stamped GORHAM CO FOUNDERS Q451
26in. (66cm.) high, rich reddish brown patina

Literature

S. Lami. Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école Française, 1914, p. 68
J.B. Speed Art Museum, Nineteenth Century French Sculpture: Monuments to the Middle Class, Louisville, Kentucky, p.35

Lot Essay

Bartholdi was commissioned by Gorham Company to model Christopher Columbus which was cast as a silver monument (using 30,000 ounces of silver) in 1893 and exhibted at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Gorham later edited a limited number of reductions of the figure in bronze. An aluminum example of the model was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1900 (no. 1821).