Paul Howard Manship
Actaeon
Auction Closed
April 20, 05:26 PM GMT
Estimate
300,000 - 500,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Paul Howard Manship
1885 - 1966
Actaeon
inscribed Paul Manship / © 1924 (on the base); inscribed C. Valsuani. Fondeur (along the base)
bronze with partial-gilding
28 in. (71.1 cm.) high on a 1¼ in. (3.2 cm.) marble base
Conceived in 1924.
Estate of Margaret Leech Pulitzer, New York
Sotheby Parke-Bernet New York, December 12, 1975, lot 141
Wolf Family Collection No. 0047 (acquired from the above)
Exh. Cat., St. Paul, Minnesota, Minnesota Museum of Art, Changing Taste in America, 1985, no. 46, pp. 30, 72-73, 75, illustration of another cast
John Manship, Paul Manship, New York, 1989, pp. 101, 111, 113, another cast mentioned
Susan Rather, Archaism, Modernism, and the Art of Paul Manship, Austin, 1993, p. 160, another cast mentioned
There is a story in Greek mythology, as published in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which the hunter Actaeon accidentally stumbles across the goddess Diana (also known as Artemis) while bathing in the woods. Known for her modesty, Diana punishes the young huntsman by turning him into a stag. Unable to recognize their owner in his new animal form, Actaeon’s own hounds pursue and kill him.
The present work narrates the dramatic moment in which the hounds attack Actaeon. Paul Manship depicts Actaeon mid-transformation, his sculpted human body having already grown the horns of a stag. The strong diagonal of Actaeon’s raised arm and outstretched leg is mirrored by the dog at rear, who scales the hunter’s body as he prepares to pounce. Manship excels in capturing a great deal of energy within this bronze, which signals the movement and haste of this mythological tale.
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