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Lot Essay
Hamo Thornycroft's Mower was first exhibited in plaster at the Royal Academy in 1884, and in a life-size bronze version in 1894; the latter is now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. 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 Italian Orazio Cervi posed for the model in 1883. When the completed figure was exhibited, it was accompanied in the catalogue by three lines from Matthew Arnold's Thursis:
who, as the tiny swell
of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,
stood with suspended scythe to see us pass.
Like the poem, The Mower celebrates the pensive and natural energy in man. In this respect, it follows closely in the tradition of Donatello's David and Alfred Gilbert's Perseus, each expressing through stillness and melancholy latent physical strength. Thornycroft also found inspiration in the paintings of Millet and the sculpture of Meunier, but unlike these his figure is not a social statement, rather the essence of the heroic and solitary.
The present bronze is one of a limited edition of approximately thirty-five that Thornycroft announced in a circular issued in 1890. They cost 45 guineas each, and were probably cast by Singer & Sons of Frome.
who, as the tiny swell
of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,
stood with suspended scythe to see us pass.
Like the poem, The Mower celebrates the pensive and natural energy in man. In this respect, it follows closely in the tradition of Donatello's David and Alfred Gilbert's Perseus, each expressing through stillness and melancholy latent physical strength. Thornycroft also found inspiration in the paintings of Millet and the sculpture of Meunier, but unlike these his figure is not a social statement, rather the essence of the heroic and solitary.
The present bronze is one of a limited edition of approximately thirty-five that Thornycroft announced in a circular issued in 1890. They cost 45 guineas each, and were probably cast by Singer & Sons of Frome.