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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF MARY CARSWELLThe following group of bronzes and works on paper by Dame Elisabeth Frink were collected by Frink’s close friend and supporter, Mary Carswell (1933-2018). Based in New York with her husband Robert Carswell, Mary led a distinguished career in the non-profit sector in both the arts and social services. This included being president and founding board member of The New York Academy of Art in 1982, a devoted board member of the Clark Art Institute, and her role as Executive Director of The MacDowell Colony, a working retreat for artists. Mary and Elisabeth Frink first met in 1983, as their mutual friend Ann Christopher explained, ‘Lis and I were both members of the Royal Academy and in 1983 were the only two female sculptors!! Ken [Cook] and I were helping Lis install her 1983 exhibition at the Terry Dintenfass Gallery when a lady walked in - it was Mary with a photograph of a Frink horse, she asked him if this was the same artist - it was. Ken then introduced Mary to Lis. After their brief conversation Mary asked Ken which sculpture he thought was the best piece - he said Standing Horse (known by Lis and Ken as Ghost Horse). A few years later when Ken and I returned to New York we discovered Mary had bought the horse and it was that point on that we became close friends with Mary and Bob’. Mary was one of Frink's most important patrons - largely buying directly from Frink - and the two corresponded across the Atlantic over a period of ten years as Mary's carefully curated collection of Frink's works grew.

Dame Elisabeth Frink, R.A. (1930-1993)

Study for Leonardo’s Dog

Details

Dame Elisabeth Frink, R.A. (1930-1993)
Study for Leonardo’s Dog
signed and numbered ‘Frink 6/8’ (on the underside)
bronze with a dark brown patina
9 in. (22.9 cm.) high
Conceived and cast in 1991.

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner on 23 July 1991.

Literature

E. Lucie-Smith, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture Since 1984 and Drawings, London, 1994, pp. 20, 191, no. SC60, another cast illustrated, as 'Maquette for Leonardo's Dog'.
A. Ratuszniak (ed.), Elisabeth Frink, Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, London, 2013, p. 187, no. FCR392, another cast illustrated.

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. These lots have been imported from outside the EU or, if the UK has withdrawn from the EU without an agreed transition deal, from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

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Lot Essay

Throughout her practice, Frink was preoccupied by the relationship between humanity and nature, and animals were a subject to which she returned frequently. She was particularly concerned with the close relationship and interdependence between humans and domestic animals, and having grown up in the rural Suffolk, had seen firsthand this close bond. Over her career, she produced numerous renderings of both horses and dogs, animals which fascinated her ‘because they’ve been man’s best friend for thousands of years’, and Frink began to explore in depth the nature of an inter-specie relationship which has been depicted in art for centuries (E. Frink, quoted in A. Ratuszniak, Elisabeth Frink, Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, Farnham, 2013, p. 4).

In the final decade of her career, it was dogs that held a particularly important place in Frink’s practice, reflecting perhaps her own life surrounded by animals at Woolland House, nestled in the countryside of Dorset. There her husband, Alex Csáky kept Hungarian gun dogs named Vizslas, golden-red athletic dogs, which undoubtedly provided inspiration for her works. With their rich colour and elegant musculature, these animals were ideal for translation into bronze. Frink carefully observed the behaviour of these hounds, and their expressive potential.

Life size pieces Large Dog (1986) and Dog (1992) depict these creatures as animated hounds who interact and appear to greet the viewer. The two life size versions of the seated hound Leonardo's Dog I, and Leonardo's Dog II were created in 1991 and 1992 respectively after a visit to the Chateau de Cloux near Amboise, the last residence of Leonardo da Vinci, where he died in 1519. Two stone dogs guard the entrance to the chateau and wait for their master to return.

Edward Lucie-Smith records the differences in Frink's handling of these dog sculptures, 'Leonardo's Dog, though apparently similar to her earlier dog sculptures, represents an interesting technical development. It is far more solid, more apparently weighty than any of its predecessors. In this sense it bears a strong resemblance to the great War Horse for Chatsworth, also a late work. From a stylistic point of view, it represents the final renunciation of the attenuated forms which had typified her early sculpture. The mood, too, is different. The seated dog waits calmly for whatever time will bring - the anxiety which fills some of the earlier sculpture is here entirely absent' (E. Lucie-Smith, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture Since 1984 and Drawings, London, 1994, p. 20).

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