Mother and Child on Ladderback Rocking Chair

Details

Henry Moore (1898-1986)
Mother and Child on Ladderback Rocking Chair
bronze with green and gray patina
Height: 7¾in. (19.7cm.)
Cast by the Gaskin foundry, 1952

Provenance

Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York
Jane Wade, Ltd., New York
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Kobacker, Columbus; sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, Oct. 29, 1970, lot 32
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, New York, Nov. 15, 1989, lot 68

Literature

W. Grohmann, The Art of Henry Moore, London, 1960, no. 114 (larger bronze version illustrated)
ed. A. Bowness, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1965, vol. 2 (1949-54), no. 312 (another cast illustrated, pl. 39)
J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, Henry Moore, New York, 1968, pl. 1 (another cast illustrated, p. 178)
R. Melville, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, 1921-1969, London, 1970, no. 429 (another cast illustrated)
ed. D. Mitchinson and H. Moore, Henry Moore Sculpture, with comments by the artist, New York, 1981, no. 222 (another cast illustrated, p. 114)

Lot Essay

In 1950 Henry Moore created four bronzes of a rocking chair as toys for his four-year-old daughter Mary. The artist later recalled, "I discovered while doing them that the speed of the rocking depended on the curvature of the base, the disposition of the weights and balance of the sculpture, so each of them rocks at a different speed." (H. Moore, quoted in J. Hedgecoe and H. Moore, op. cit, p. 178)

The present work was executed in 1952 and was derived from the earlier series of four rocking chair toys. Mother and Child on Ladderback Rocking Chair is most closely related to Rocking Chair No. 2 (Bowness, vol. 2, no. 275). It is smaller in size, has a more detailed rocking chair and the figures appear more abstract. The figure of the mother is probably based on a sculpture of an Egyptian fertility goddess located in the collection of the British Museum.