Psyché

This sculpture may have been commissioned or originally purchased from the foundry by Milton Latham when he undertook the rebuilding and furnishing of Thurlow Lodge. This palatial 280 acre estate in Menlo Park succumbed to fire and was rebuilt as a three story mansion in French Empire-style with a 98 foot tower designed by architect David Farquharson. In addition to the stately main residence, the property included numerous activity and leisure areas including an aviary, stables, trout pond, deer enclosure, and extensive nurseries. Marble columns were shipped from Pompeii to create an outdoor ‘Ruins’ feature and an entire ‘Moorish temple’ was relocated to the grounds. Latham decorated his lavish new home with an important collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture. Animal statuary, and single female figures in bronze and marble displaying various contemplative attitudes, such as the present work, were prominently featured both inside and in the outdoor gardens. This bronze, dated 1872, coincides with the rebuilding of the estate.
Timothy Hopkins and Mary Kellogg Hopkins were the next residents of the estate and extended the horticultural facilities on the property to include 24 greenhouses and renamed the mansion and grounds to Sherwood Hall. The estate was donated to Stanford University at her passing in 1941 and the contents were sold at auction including both the present work and the Thurlow Lodge mantlepiece which is now in the collection of the de Young Museum, San Francisco. Stanford University razed the residence the following year (J. Cain, ‘Nursey Aspect of the Hopkins Estate’, The Gate Post, vol. XXXIX, Menlo Park, July-September 2013).
Aizelin trained at the École des beaux-arts and pursued a successful career in a markedly classical style, exhibiting frequently at the Salon. Several of his models were cast in to bronzes and bronze reductions by the Barbedienne foundry. He first conceived this model in 1861 and showed a version in plaster at the Paris Salon the same year (no. 3150). Following its success at the Salon, the sculptor completed a version in marble for the Salon of 1863 (no. 2221). This marble version appeared again at the Exposition universelle in 1867. These public exhibitions for the model and subsequent renown for the artist may have directly influenced the original acquisition of the present bronze which is the largest size made available by the Barbedienne foundry. The marble version appeared again at the Exposition universelle in 1867. The marble version was again displayed at the Exposition universelle of 1873 in Vienna. Both the plaster and marble versions have been acquired by the French state.