AN AMERICAN BRONZE FIGURE OF SOPHOCLES, cast from the model by John Talbott Donaghue, the young naked Greek playing a lyre and leading the Chorus of Victory after the Battle of Salamis, on a rectangular base signed J DONAGHUE Sc and with the foundry inscription F. BARBEDIENNE Fondeur. Paris and with the title inscription \kSOPHOCLES SALAMIS\K (with detachable loin-cloth),late 19th Century

AN AMERICAN BRONZE FIGURE OF SOPHOCLES, cast from the model by John Talbott Donaghue, the young naked Greek playing a lyre and leading the Chorus of Victory after the Battle of Salamis, on a rectangular base signed J DONAGHUE Sc and with the foundry inscription F. BARBEDIENNE Fondeur. Paris and with the title inscription \kSOPHOCLES SALAMIS\K (with detachable loin-cloth),late 19th Century

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AN AMERICAN BRONZE FIGURE OF SOPHOCLES, cast from the model by John Talbott Donaghue, the young naked Greek playing a lyre and leading the Chorus of Victory after the Battle of Salamis, on a rectangular base signed J DONAGHUE Sc and with the foundry inscription F. BARBEDIENNE Fondeur. Paris and with the title inscription \kSOPHOCLES SALAMIS\K (with detachable loin-cloth),late 19th Century
14½in. (37cm.) wide; 44½in. (113cm.) high; 10¾in. (27.3cm.) deep

Lot Essay

Born in Chicago, John Talbott Donaghue (d. 1903) studied at the city's Academy of Design before embarking on a two year stay in Paris where he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under the tutelage of Jouffroy. Donaghue made his debut at the Salon of 1880 with a plaster bust entitled Phaedra, but for financial reasons returned to America the following year. There he met and impressed Oscar Wilde, who became instrumental in enabling him to return to Paris in 1883. The young American then began to exhibit on a regular basis at the Salon, at the Royal Academy in London and in his native Chicago.

The present figure, entitled Young Sophocles leading the chorus of victory after the Battle of Salamis, is probably Donaghue's best-known work, being cast by Barbedienne after it's unveiling at the Salon. Executed during a stay in Rome in 1885, this classical statue was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1990 and again at the Chicago World Fair in the mid-1890s.

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