Orpheus

A rare work, the present lot is most likely a single cast and is a derivation of the artist’s memorial tablet in honour of the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). The original tablet was completed in 1902 and placed in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, where the member of the musical duo Gilbert and Sullivan was buried by order of Queen Victoria. Modelled in high-relief, it depicts the god of Music standing with his attribute, the lyre, against a ground inscribed with a dedication to Sullivan. A variation of the relief was offered in the 1992 Fine Art Society exhibition Gibson to Gilbert: British Sculpture 1840-1914, with differences to the position of the figure’s head and proper right arm and which did not include reference to Sullivan, but was simply inscribed ‘Orpheus’ in Greek to the bottom edge and is certainly the artist’s later attempt to retrieve a second work from a highly specific commission. The example seen here presents the figure’s head in a slightly raised, modified, third position, an interesting insight the continuing development of the composition by the artist.