Middle White Boar: Wharfedale Deliverance

Herbert Haseltine conceived Middle White Boar: Wharfedale Deliverance and Middle White Sow: Wharfedale Royal Lady (Lot 215) as part of a series of British champion animals, most of which the artist modeled from life between 1922 and 1924. First carved in opulent materials mimicking the animals' coats, such as rose marble for pigs, the original models were one-third life-size. Bronze reductions were made in one-quarter and one-eighth life-size, the present work being the smallest size. According to Joel Rosenkranz and Janice Conner, at least six sets were cast of the present 5 to 6 in. height version.

The present work was modeled after the champion boar that won several shows in the early 1920s, who lost only to his daughter (Lot 215) at the Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1923. Haseltine recalled, "The Middle White Boar...could not see for his fat. He became very attached to me, because I used to feed him bits of sugar, which in his long and successful career as an exhibitionist and sire, nobody, I am sure, had ever thought of offering him! Wharfedale Deliverance had small and elegant cloven feet and it hardly seemed possible that they could support the mountains of fat towering above them. The edges of his hieroglyphically-curled ears were covered with a fringe of white curls, and his tail was hairy, like a horse's, the hairs nearly touching the ground while he was standing still, and carried gracefully over his back when walking. I represented the tail in that position. Some visitors to the farm noticed this and when they expressed their surprise, I had him walked about—and up went the tail!" (M. Cormack, Champion Animals: Sculptures by Herbert Haseltine, Richmond, Virginia, 1996, pp. 86)