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Lot Essay
The New Sculpture movement shows a propensity for heroic figures and classical nudes, whereas The Mower is thought to be the first British statue of the period to depict a labourer in his working clothes. The style is more reminiscent of Thornycroft’s French contemporary, Aimé-Jules Dalou. Although The Mower actually predates Dalou’s studies of peasants and labourers for his ‘Monument to the Workers’, and thus well illustrates the Franco-British dialogue in New Sculpture.
The genesis of the composition lay in a boat trip of 1882, when Thornycroft observed a mower resting on the banks of the Thames. He made study drawings and sketch models in wax and plaster and the present statuette is a cast of Thornycroft’s sketch of 1882. The final version of the model shows the scythe with the blade resting on the ground instead of the air, and figure bare-chested. When he exhibited the plaster Thornycroft published in the Royal Academy catalogue the following lines, adapted from Matthew Arnold's lament 'Thyrsis' (published 1867), written in memory of his fellow poet Arthur Hugh Clough:
A mower, who as the tiny swell
Of our boat passing heaved the river grass
Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass
The genesis of the composition lay in a boat trip of 1882, when Thornycroft observed a mower resting on the banks of the Thames. He made study drawings and sketch models in wax and plaster and the present statuette is a cast of Thornycroft’s sketch of 1882. The final version of the model shows the scythe with the blade resting on the ground instead of the air, and figure bare-chested. When he exhibited the plaster Thornycroft published in the Royal Academy catalogue the following lines, adapted from Matthew Arnold's lament 'Thyrsis' (published 1867), written in memory of his fellow poet Arthur Hugh Clough:
A mower, who as the tiny swell
Of our boat passing heaved the river grass
Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass