Carl Ethan Akeley

Mrs. Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, New York

Acquired as a gift from the above in January 1962 by the present owner

Anna Sterns, "Some Animals I Have Met," Our Dumb Animals, vol. 46, no. 7, Boston, December 1913, p. 101, illustration of another cast

Exh. Cat., Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 109th Annual Exhibition, 1914, no. 652, p. 56, another cast exhibited

William Walton, "The Field of Art," Scribner's Magazine, vol. 55, no. 5, New York, June 1914, p. 666, another cast mentioned

Exh. Cat., San Francisco, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, no. 13, p. 3, another cast exhibited

George Frederick Kuntz, Ivory and the Elephant in Art, Archaeology, and in Science, New York, 1916, p. 212, illustration of another cast

"Sculptures of Cark Ethan Akeley," Country Life, vol. 36, New York, 1919, p. 47, illustration of another cast

Slyvia Holt, "Art Versus Imitation," American Magazine of Art, vol. 14, Washington, D.C., 1923, p. 625, illustration of another cast

Exh. Cat., New York, National Sculpture Society, Exhibition of American Sculpture, 1923, p. 7, another cast exhibited

Dorothy S. Greene, "Carl Akeley: Sculpture-Taxidermist," American Magazine of Art, vol. 15, Washington, D.C., January 1924, pp. 127-29, another cast mentioned

The Mentor: A Wise and Faithful Guide and Friend, vol. 13, New York, 1925, p. 11, illustration of another cast

The Magazine Antiques, vol. 126, New York, 1984, fig. 7, illustration of another cast

Stephen T. Asma, Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums, New York, 2001, p. 242, another cast mentioned

Joan B. Landes, Paul Youngquist and Paula Young Lee, Gorgeous Beasts: Animal Bodies in Historical Perspective, University Park, Pennsylvania, 2012, no. 29, pp. 133 and 130, illustration of another cast

Itty Abraham, Benjamin Allen and Lino Camprubi, The Planning Moment: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, New York, 2024, another cast mentioned

Executed in 1913, The Wounded Comrade depicts a wounded elephant being supported by two herd members, a scene Carl Ethan Akeley observed firsthand in the wild. Akeley first visited Africa in 1896, deeply inspiring the artist who maintained an academic fascination with animals and their behavior. An established naturalist, taxidermist, conservationist, and artist, Carl Ethan Akeley worked for the American Museum of Natural History from 1909 to 1926, where the Akeley Hall of African Mammals is named in his honor. Akeley’s work in sculpture uses a piercing realism to capture the emotional and social dynamics of animals.

The Wounded Comrade was Akeley’s first attempt to translate his clay models into bronze sculptures, and it remains the most famous example. Testament to the work's importance, other editions of the present work belong to prestigious institution collections such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art.