Middle White Sow: Wharfedale Royal Lady

Herbert Haseltine conceived Middle White Sow: Wharfedale Royal Lady and Middle White Boar: Wharfedale Deliverance (Lot 214) 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 sow at the Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1921 and 1923 and at the Yorkshire Show of 1923. Haseltine recalled, "...I was scheduled to do the boar only, but I was so taken by the beauty—beauty from the sculptural point of view—of Wharfedale's daughter, Wharfedale Royal Lady, that I stayed on to make a model of her also. She had the same characteristics as her father—the same straight back, the same type of shortened turned-up nose, and vision blocked out by the rolls of fat surrounding her eyes...She was so flamboyantly pregnant that she could hardly waddle, and therefore made an excellent model. To her also I gave lumps of sugar and although she could not see me, I am sure she would have given me the glad eye, if she had only had the chance. I worked fast, because the herdsman warned me that her deliverance was imminent and I did not want to be obliged to alter the silhouette of her waist-line after the happy event!" (M. Cormack, Champion Animals: Sculptures by Herbert Haseltine, Richmond, Virginia, 1996, pp. 91-92)