Equestrienne [LF 22]

Details

Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935)
Equestrienne [LF 22]
inscribed ‘G LACHAISE/1918’ (on the base)—stamped ‘ROMAN BRONZE WORKS N.Y.’ (along the base)
polished bronze
10 ½ in. (26.7 cm.) high
Modeled in 1917; cast circa 1930-31.

Provenance

Erhard Weyhe, New York, 1931.
Gilbert A. Harrison, Washington, D.C., by 1969.
By descent to the present owner.

Literature

H. McBride, “Gaston Lachaise, Sculptor,” Fine Arts Journal, vol. 36, no. 3, March 1918, p. 53, another example illustrated.
A.E. Gallatin, Gaston Lachaise, New York, 1924, pp. 9, 14, 51, pl. 12, another example illustrated.
A.H. Barr Jr., ed., Painting and Sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1942, p. 52, no. 338, another example referenced.
M. Knoedler and Co., Gaston Lachaise 1882–1935, New York, 1947, p. 15, no. 4, another example referenced.
A.H. Barr Jr., ed., Painting and Sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1948, p. 312, no. 397, another example referenced.
Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 1, January–March 1963, p. 5, another example illustrated (as Lady Godiva).
J. Selz, Modern Sculpture: Origins and Evolution, New York, 1963, pp. 165, 170, pl. 141, another example illustrated.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gaston Lachaise 1882–1935: Sculpture and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles, 1964, n.p., no. 22, another example illustrated.
Felix Landau Gallery, Sculpture: 20 Anniversary Exhibition, Felix Landau Gallery, 1948–68, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles, California, 1968, fig. 29, another example illustrated.
D.B. Goodall, “Gaston Lachaise, Sculptor,” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 227–28, 229, 241, 256n. 80, 258n. 99, 325, 378, 406n. 28, 463–64, 482, 485; vol. 2, pp. 474–75; pp. 205–08, pls. XCVII–A and XCVII–B, the present cast referenced; the plaster model illustrated.
Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, Grant-Munger Collection: American and European 19th & 20th Century, San Diego, 1970, pp. 41, 108–09, no. 80, another example illustrated.
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Modern and Contemporary Sculpture: Including Reliefs, Multiples, Constructions and Drawings Selected from Private Collections in Orange County, Newport Beach, California, 1974, n.p., no. 13, another example illustrated.
G. Nordland, Gaston Lachaise: The Man and His Work, New York, 1974, pp. 127–28, 181n. 31, fig. 64, another example illustrated.
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, The Horse in Art: Paintings–Sculpture, 17th–20th Centuries; Graphics, 15th–20th Century, exhibition catalogue, Santa Barbara, 1974, n.p., no. 50, another example illustrated.
Whitney Museum of American Art, 20th–Century American Art from Friends’ Collections, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1977, n.p., another example referenced.
Vanguard American Sculpture, 1913–1939, exhibition catalogue, New Jersey, 1979, p. 38, fig. 46, another example illustrated.
The Art Gallery, California State College, Gaston Lachaise: Sculpture and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, San Bernardino, California, 1980, pp. 14–15, 47, no. 6, fig. 16, another example illustrated.
D. Jensen, Center Ring: The Artist; Two Centuries of Circus Art, exhibition catalogue, Milwaukee, 1981, pp. 65, 79, 91, no. 57, another example referenced.
Gaston Lachaise: 100th Anniversary Exhibition, Sculpture and Drawing, exhibition catalogue, Palm Springs, California, 1982, pp. 20, 43, no. 15, another example illustrated.
Portland Museum of Art, Gaston Lachaise: Sculpture & Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Portland, Maine, 1984, p. 34, no. 19, another example referenced.
C.B. Fulton, Modernist Idylls: Nature and the Avant-Garde, 1905–1930, exhibition catalogue, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1987, n.p., no. 19, another example illustrated.
Gaston Lachaise 1882–1935, exhibition catalogue, Paris, France, 2003, pp. 130, 187, no. 18, another example illustrated.
J. Day, J. Stenger, K. Fremin, N. Khandekar, and V. Budny, Gaston Lachaise, Characteristics of His Bronze Sculpture, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2012, p. 67, another example referenced.
Face & Figure: The Sculpture of Gaston Lachaise, exhibition catalogue, Greenwich, Connecticut, 2012, pp. 18, 19, no. 7, another example illustrated.
Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, Gaston Lachaise: For the Love of Woman, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2016, pp. 6, 24–25, 13n.18, fig. 7, another example illustrated.

Sale room notice

Please note the correct medium for this lot is polished bronze.

Brought to you by

William Haydock

whaydock@christies.com + 1 212 636 2140

Lot Essay

We are grateful to Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné sponsored by the Lachaise Foundation, for her assistance in preparing the following catalogue entry for this work.

Gaston Lachaise’s statuette of a nude woman astride a horse—aptly characterized by A.E. Gallatin as “a beautiful series of curves” (Gaston Lachaise, New York, 1924, p. 14)—was evidently inspired by a delightful childhood memory of a circus performer. According to Lachaise, the sculpture was modeled in 1917, not, as is often stated, 1918 (the date inscribed on the model). The first bronze was produced for Lachaise’s show in February 1918 at the Bourgeois Galleries, New York. The second, formerly owned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, was produced in 1923. The whereabouts of those casts is unknown. Eleven other casts are known to have been made during Lachaise’s lifetime. Six, including the present example, are presently located; the other five are in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Corcoran Collection, Gift of the Honorable Francis Biddle), the San Diego Museum of Art, California (Bequest of Earle W. Grant), and three private collections.

Ten of the thirteen lifetime casts were produced in 1930–31 by the Roman Bronze Works for Erhard Weyhe, owner of the Weyhe Gallery, New York. The first was delivered to Weyhe in September 1930. Nine others were ordered in the same month and delivered to him in April 1931. (Six were returned to the foundry for repair and refinishing in April 1936, six months after Lachaise’s unexpected death.) The first four digits of the number recorded on the undersides of both the present bronze and the San Diego example correspond to the foundry order number for the group of nine casts, and thus indicate their early history. (The other four lifetime casts that are presently located are also demonstrably among those made for Weyhe, although at least three of them lack an inscribed order number.)

After Lachaise’s death, his widow, Isabel Dutaud Lachaise (1872–1957), authorized a small number of casts. The Lachaise Foundation (established in 1963) has issued an edition of three Estate casts and an artist’s proof. Although exhibited in 1918 as Amazone (the dealer’s name), Lachaise himself referred to the work as Woman on Horseback. It is now known as Equestrienne (and occasionally as Lady Godiva).

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