Day and the Hours—Sundial

Details

PAUL HOWARD MANSHIP (1885-1966)
Day and the Hours—Sundial
inscribed 'PAUL. MANSHIP © 1916' (on the base)—inscribed 'ROMAN BRONZE WORKS N-Y-' (along the base)
parcel-gilt bronze with greenish-brown patina
20 in. (50.8 cm.) high on a 2 in. (5.1 cm.) marble base
Modeled in 1916; cast by 1920.

Provenance

The artist.
Mr. and Mrs. Edwin. O. Holter, Mt. Kisco, New York, acquired from the above, by 1920.
By descent to the present owner.

Literature

H.A. Caparn, "Statuary in the Small Garden," House & Garden, June 1920, p. 27, illustrated.
P. Vitry, Paul Manship: Sculpteur Américain, Paris, France, 1927, pl. 10, another example illustrated.
E. Murtha, Paul Manship, New York, 1957, p. 158, no. 86.
Minnesota Museum of Art, Paul Manship: Changing Taste in America, exhibition catalogue, Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1985, p. 185, no. 121, another example referenced.
J. Manship, Paul Manship, New York, 1989, pp. 63, 66, another example illustrated.
H. Rand, Paul Manship, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1989, p. 165.
S. Rather, Archaism, Modernism, and the Art of Paul Manship, Austin, Texas, 1993, p. 116 (as Sundial).

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Cast in an edition of ten, Day and the Hours—Sundial may have been designed specifically for Edwin and Sarah Porter Holter of Mt. Kisco, New York, the original owners of the present example. Paul and Isabel Manship were close friends with the lawyer and his wife, and according to correspondence between the families, the Manships named their daughter Sarah after Mrs. Holter. Manship frequently designed sculptures for specific gardens, and the other casts of Day and the Hours—Sundial may very well have been created in response to requests following the June 1920 publication of the Holters' sculpture in House and Garden magazine. The present example has descended in the Holters' family for the past century.

The central female figure of the sculpture recalls an Indian bodhisattva, and dancing figures adorn the halo-like mandala around her. Greek-inspired ornamental borders divide the sections of the sculpture, and the artist's interest in astrology is represented by the twelve signs of the zodiac depicted in low relief along the base.

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