An American Silver Figure of Winged Victory, Carl Augustus Heber for Tiffany & Co., New York, circa 1910

overall wear especiall to sphere, ? date of ivory feet, pitting to roundels - ? filled engraving
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This figure is based on the sculpture Victory which accompanies the uniformed figure of General William Tecumseh Sherman and his horse as part of the Sherman Monument (1982-1903) in Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, Brooklyn.  Designed by Augustus Saint-Gauden in1897-99, Victory was intended "to express victory and peace a the same time".  A reduction of the Sherman Monument group, including Victory was shown at the Societe National des Beaux-Arts in 1899.  A more refined version was exhibited in plaster at the Exposition Universelle the following year.  After multiple bronze castings were executed in both Paris and Cornish, NH, Victory was finally unveiled in Grand Army Plaza on 30 May 1903.  The publication The Nation noted: "Before the horse and rider, half walks, half flies, a splendid winged figure, one arm outstretched, the other brandishing the palm Victory leading them on.  She has a certain fierce wildness of aspect, but her rapt gaze and half-open mouth indicate the seer of visions peace is ahead and an end of war."

The present lot was designed by German born artist Carl Augustus Heber (1875-1956).  Heber studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and it is recorded in the July 1913 Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago that Heber "has received the commission for a Soldier's Monument in granite and bronze to be erected by Kane County at Geneva, Ill.  It will embody figures symbolical of the Civil War and also the wars with Mexico and Spain.  Mr. Heber has orders also for two groups in granite for approaches of the great Manhattan Bridge in New York.  These groups will represent Industry and Commerce" (p. 10).  A full- scale bronze figure of Victory by Heber is presently located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.