Forging America: The Wolf Family Collection

Forging America: The Wolf Family Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 304. The Moqui Prayer for Rain (The Returning of the Snakes).

Hermon Atkins MacNeil

The Moqui Prayer for Rain (The Returning of the Snakes)

Auction Closed

April 20, 05:26 PM GMT

Estimate

70,000 - 100,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Hermon Atkins MacNeil

1866 - 1947

The Moqui Prayer for Rain (The Returning of the Snakes)


inscribed H.A. MACNEIL Sc and Fond. Nelli Roma. (on the base); inscribedTHE RETVRNING OF THE SNAKES (along the base); inscribed THE MOQVI / PRAYER·FOR·RAIN (on the base)

bronze

22 in. (55.9 cm.) high

Conceived in 1895-96; this example cast circa 1897.

James Graham & Sons, New York

Sotheby Parke-Bernet New York, October 4, 1977, lot 122

Wolf Family Collection No. 0185 (acquired from the above)

Denver, Denver Art Museum, 2003-2013 (on loan)
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American West in Bronze, 1850-1925, 2013-14, cat. 28, figs. 46-47, pp. 38-40, illustrated
Denver, Denver Art Museum, 2014-23 (on loan)

During a visit to northern Arizona in 1895, Hermon Atkins MacNeil observed the Moqui people’s annual prayer for rain at the top of the Mesa at Oraibi. The ceremony concluded with the participants carrying live snakes to the plain so that their prayers would be answered. MacNeil was so inspired by the ritual that he produced The Moqui Prayer for Rain to capture the movement and fervor of the event. 


The sculptor completed the model in Rome, at which point the Nelli Foundry cast a short run of less than ten examples. It is believed that there are six casts in existence today.