Lot Essay
A classicist in approach and vision, John Talbott Donoghue became one of the most successful American artists under the age of thirty when he won the gold medal at the 1880 Paris Salon for this sculpture 'The Sophocles Leading the Chorus of Victory after the Battle of Salamis.' His works, such as the present example, incorporate ancient a Greco Roman aesthetic and represenation of the human form, there is a lightness and sense of movement that make them uniquely his own.