Lot 52
52
A SET OF THREE BRONZE RELIEFS OF LITERARY MUSES, attributed to Esther Moore, one with a sprite holding a laughing mask, with the inscription BORN TO SPEAK ALL MIRTH, another holding a quill in her left hand and an open book in her right, inscribed LET TIMES NEWS BE KNOWN, the third with her head buried in her raised arms, a bat-winged skull hovering above her, inscribed MISERYS LOVS O COME TO ME, all three winged and standing amid spiralling scrolls, late 19th Century

Details
A SET OF THREE BRONZE RELIEFS OF LITERARY MUSES, attributed to Esther Moore, one with a sprite holding a laughing mask, with the inscription BORN TO SPEAK ALL MIRTH, another holding a quill in her left hand and an open book in her right, inscribed LET TIMES NEWS BE KNOWN, the third with her head buried in her raised arms, a bat-winged skull hovering above her, inscribed MISERYS LOVS O COME TO ME, all three winged and standing amid spiralling scrolls, late 19th Century
12½ x 3 3/8in. (31.8 x 8.6cm.) each (3)
Literature
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
S. Beattie, The New Sculpture, Yale University Press, 1983, pp.22, 195-6 & 247

Lot Essay

Esther Mary Moore exhibited between 1890 and 1911. She was one of the highly accomplished women sculptors who trained under Edward Lanteri in his modelling classes at the then National School at South Kensington. Moore was the first of this class of women sculptors to exhibit work at the Arts and Crafts Society. She made her début there in 1893 with a bracket for electric light, winning a silver medal in the same year. The present set of reliefs are reputedly from a Shakespeare Cabinet, for which Moore designed the inset bronze panels.

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