George James Frampton

Sotheby's London, 21 April 2004, lot 143;

Where acquired by the present owner, private collection, USA

In 1911 an anonymous donor commissioned George Frampton to create a sculpture of Peter Pan to be placed on the very spot in Kensington gardens where the magical boy appears nightly in J M Barrie's Little White Bird of 1901, the first book in which the character appears. In fact the anonymous donor was the author himself. He had the bronze erected in secret on 29^th and 30^th 1912, so that it would seem to have magically appeared. Frampton exhibited the model at the Royal Academy in 1911. In writing his tales of Peter Pan J M Barrie was inspired by a family of boys - the Llewelyns. George Llewelyn was the inspiration for the character of Peter Pan, and Frampton used his brother Michael as the inspiration for his sculpture.

In the full scale monument Peter Pan is lifted up on a swirling rock populated by fairies, bunny rabbits, squirrels and mice. He raises his pipe to his mouth and plays to the spirits of the children who play in the park. Frampton's sprightly Peter proved to be a perennially popular model and casts of the monument are to be found as far afield as Brussels, New Jersey, Toronto and Perth, Australia. Parts of the original plaster model are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Following its immediate popular appeal, Frampton produced a bronze reduction of the main figure as an independent statuette.

RELATED LITERATURE

B. Read, Victorian Sculpture, London, 1982, pp. 315-317; Royal Academy Exhibitors 1905-1970, Wiltshire, 1979, vol. II, p. 106; D. Bilbey and M. Trusted, British Sculpture 1470-2000, London, 2002, pp. 266-267