Lot Essay
This work was executed circa 1909.
In 1890, John Singer Sargent was commissioned to decorate the long hall of the Boston Public Library with scenes chronicling the history of religion from the origins of Western faiths to the rise and triumph of Christianity. This ambitious project would take Sargent over twenty-five years to complete. The sculpture Study for Israel and the Law is a study in bronze for the lunette Israel and the Law installed in 1916 in the center of the long hall's eastern face. Originally modeled in terracotta and later cast in bronze, this is the only know example in Sargent's Boston Public Library murals of a painted composition that was cast in three-dimensions.
Mary Crawford Volk writes about the bronze, "of the six painted lunette-shaped compositions [in the Boston Public Library], of which Israel and the Law is one, no other sculptures are known, nor are there any for the other paintings in the program either. Not incidentally, the painted version of Israel and the Law, as executed, was carried out in a monchrome palette that recalls sculpture, distinct from the richer color of the other lunettes." (Mary Crawford Volk, letter to consignor dated 21 March 1997)
In 1890, John Singer Sargent was commissioned to decorate the long hall of the Boston Public Library with scenes chronicling the history of religion from the origins of Western faiths to the rise and triumph of Christianity. This ambitious project would take Sargent over twenty-five years to complete. The sculpture Study for Israel and the Law is a study in bronze for the lunette Israel and the Law installed in 1916 in the center of the long hall's eastern face. Originally modeled in terracotta and later cast in bronze, this is the only know example in Sargent's Boston Public Library murals of a painted composition that was cast in three-dimensions.
Mary Crawford Volk writes about the bronze, "of the six painted lunette-shaped compositions [in the Boston Public Library], of which Israel and the Law is one, no other sculptures are known, nor are there any for the other paintings in the program either. Not incidentally, the painted version of Israel and the Law, as executed, was carried out in a monchrome palette that recalls sculpture, distinct from the richer color of the other lunettes." (Mary Crawford Volk, letter to consignor dated 21 March 1997)