HIRAM POWERS (1805-1873)

细节

HIRAM POWERS (1805-1873)

'Proserpine', A White Marble Ideal Bust

signed H POWERS Sculp
25¼in. (64.1cm.) high, including white marble socle, on original white marble fluted column

出版

L. Taft, The History of American Sculpture, 1969 reprint, pp. 60-61, fig. 6
W. Gerdts, American Neo-Classical Sculpture, New York, 1973, pp. 92-93, fig. 81
R. Wunder, Hiram Powers: Vermont Sculptor, Taftsville, Vermont, 1974, pp. 18-19, 33, illus.
Whitney Museum of American Art, 200 Years of American Sculpture, New York, 1976, p. 41, pl. 7
W. Craven, Sculpture in America, New York, 1984 edition, p. 115
R. Wunder, Hiram Powers: Vermont Sculptor, 1805-1873, Newark, 1991, vol. I, 136-139, 141, 143, 147, 155, 160, 162, 164, 182, 210, 232-233, 237, 239, 241, 253, 275-276, 283, 309, 316, 333, 341, vol II., pp. 187-204, cat. no. 223

拍品专文

Proserpine was Powers' second attempt at modelling an ideal bust from his imagination. The first version of the subject, conceived in 1843, depicts the lifesize goddess truncated below her breasts and in the middle of her upper arms. The body rose from a shaped basket overflowing with tube-roses and narcissus, the foot of the basket formed as the socle of the bust. The carving of the basket and flowers proved too labor intensive and expensive for atelier carving and the sculptor was forced to rework the model several times, finally substituting a border of leaves and a turned socle for the basket. Proserpine became "the most favored single piece among Powers' work and it was copied more times than any other work ever produced by an American sculptor" (Wunder, 1974, p. 18).