Thomas Waldo Story (Paris 1855-1915 New York), Dated 1881 and 1882

Thomas Waldo Story;

Thence by descent;

Sotheby's London, 29 May 2008, lot 81;

Where acquired by Aso O. Tavitian.

Though born in Italy, Thomas Waldo Story was of American heritage; his father was the distinguished neoclassical sculptor William Wetmore Story. Thomas attended Eton and Oxford, and mingled with expatriate artists living and practicing in Rome with his father. They introduced him to an impressive group of British aristocratic patrons, including the Marlboroughs at Blenheim, Lord Dunham at Lambton Castle and the Astors at Cliveden. Like his good friend James Abbott MacNeil Whistler, Story was often commissioned by his wealthy patrons to create complete decorative programs for their grand homes. In particular, Story's work for Lord Rothschild's Tring Billiard Room reflects the demand for panels very similar to the present pair of friezes of Paris and Helen and Horse Race in the Isthmian Games.

While the present pair are not associated with the Tring group, they are very similar in classical subject and spirit, as evidenced by their shallow carved, well-modelled figures assembled in a rhythmic composition, with decorative elements of billowing scarves, tossed floral wreaths, and flowing hair.

Paris and Helen and Horse Race in the Isthmian Games are inspired by the riders, soldiers, chariots and allegorical maidens from ancient architectural friezes and sarcophagi. The artist prized these models, other versions of which he submitted to the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition of 1882. They were sold by Sotheby's New York on 25 April 2006. The present pair he kept in his own collection.

Story was deeply influenced by Rome and its rich history, which he encountered every day as he stepped out of his studio. He also found inspiration among his fellow artists and friends, such as Albert Moore, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Whistler, Oscar Wilde and other proponents of aestheticism. Wilde once wrote to Story that Whistler "spoke of your art with more enthusiasm that I have ever heard him speak of any modern work." Another review states that Story's "work is full of the inspiration and suggestion of Italy...and so, too, Rome, the Rome of the last rich lingering of the Renaissance, and the Rome that we see today...in the end one is led back again and again to the classic; the true rest to eye and mind, the inexhaustible well-spring of beauty."¹

¹E. March Phillips, 'Waldo Story: Sculptor', in The Magazine of Art, 1903, p. 275.

RELATED LITERATURE

E. March Phillips, 'Waldo Story: Sculptor', in The Magazine of Art, 1903, p. 137.