Peter Pan

This charming statuette of Peter Pan, is from a series of reductions in bronze, cast between 1913 and 1925, of the life-size bronze exhibited by Frampton at the Royal Academy in 1911 and erected by an anonymous donor in Kensington Gardens the following year. In fact the anonymous donor was J.M. Barrie, the author of the play first performed in 1904. He had the bronze erected in secret on 29-30 April 1912, so that it would seem to have magically appeared. The statue stands at the spot where, as recounted in Barrie's Little White Bird, Peter Pan lands for his nightly visits to the Gardens and where he pipes to the spirits of the children that have played there.
The present version places Pan atop an alabaster pedestal fronted by a plaque recalling the bronze rock in Kensington Gardens upon which the original stands, which is inhabited by a host of fairies, rabbits and other woodland creatures. The fine bronze detailing of the present statuette indicates foundry skill consistent with the period of the original, but the angular alabaster pedestal suggests the Art Deco style and might date this cast to the 1920s.