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Lot Essay
We are grateful to Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné sponsored by the Lachaise Foundation, for her assistance in preparing the catalogue entry for this work.
Gaston Lachaise’s resplendent sculpture of three peacocks both expresses his vision of those magnificent birds as manifestations of fundamental force, and displays his profound empathy for all wild creatures. The work’s plaster model, created in 1918, was first presented at the Bourgeois Galleries, New York, in February-March 1918, and reproduced in the following year (Vanity Fair, vol. 12, no. 2, April 1919, p. 25). The initial bronze cast was made in June 1922, the same month in which the sculptor obtained a copyright for the work. Thirteen additional casts were made between 1923 and 1929, including the present example. All of these casts were sold by Lachaise to John Kraushaar, director of the C.W. Kraushaar Galleries, New York, and no other examples were ever made. The model, last mentioned in 1932, is lost. Six of the casts are now in public collections: the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two of the fourteen casts are presently unlocated. The Peacocks has been given the identification number LF 315/LF 198 by the Lachaise Foundation, New York.
Gaston Lachaise’s resplendent sculpture of three peacocks both expresses his vision of those magnificent birds as manifestations of fundamental force, and displays his profound empathy for all wild creatures. The work’s plaster model, created in 1918, was first presented at the Bourgeois Galleries, New York, in February-March 1918, and reproduced in the following year (Vanity Fair, vol. 12, no. 2, April 1919, p. 25). The initial bronze cast was made in June 1922, the same month in which the sculptor obtained a copyright for the work. Thirteen additional casts were made between 1923 and 1929, including the present example. All of these casts were sold by Lachaise to John Kraushaar, director of the C.W. Kraushaar Galleries, New York, and no other examples were ever made. The model, last mentioned in 1932, is lost. Six of the casts are now in public collections: the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two of the fourteen casts are presently unlocated. The Peacocks has been given the identification number LF 315/LF 198 by the Lachaise Foundation, New York.