Frederick William MacMonnies (1863-1937)

'Nathan Hale'

细节

Frederick William MacMonnies (1863-1937)
'Nathan Hale'
inscribed 'F. MacMonnies 1890' (along the base)--stamped 'JABOEUF ROUARD/FONDEURS/A/PARIS/10 & 12/R. DE L'ASILE POPINCOURT' (on the base).
bronze with brown patina
28½ in. (72.4 cm.) high

来源

William Cooper Procter, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mary Elizabeth Johnston, Cincinnati, Ohio, by descent.
Anne Sawyer Greene, Dayton, Ohio, by descent.
By descent to the present owner.

出版

L. Taft, The History of American Sculpture, New York, 1903, pp. 336, 339, pl. X, another example illustrated.
W. Craven, Sculpture in America, New York, 1968, p. 456, another example illustrated.
F. Fried, New York Civic Sculpture: A Pictorial Guide, New York, 1976, p. 13, another example illustrated.
C.A. Cibulka, Marble and Bronze: 100 Years of American Sculpture 1840-1940, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1984, p. 17, another example illustrated.
J.A. Gordon, Cast in the Shadow: Models for Public Sculpture in America, exhibition catalogue, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1986, pp. 48-50, another example illustrated.
J. Conner, J. Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio Works, 1893-1939, Austin, Texas, 1989, pp. 126, 128, 129, another example illustrated.
W.H. Gerdts, et al., Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1869-1915, Evanston, Illinois, 1992, p. 62, another example illustrated.
M. Smart, E.A. Gordon, A Flight with Fame: The Life and Art of Frederick MacMonnies (1863-1937), Madison, Connecticut, 1996, pp. 74, 85-89, 91, 99, 102-5, 116, 136-37, 157, 188, 201, 210, 256, 270, no. 24, other examples illustrated.
E.A. Gordon, The Sculpture of Frederick William MacMonnies: A Critical Catalogue, Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1998, pp. 133-37, no. 24, pls. 24.3, 24.4, other examples illustrated.
T. Tolles, ed., American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865, vol. I, New York, 1999, pp. 434-36, another example illustrated.

拍品专文

Nathan Hale was a captain during the American Revolution who was executed by the British in New York in 1776. His now famous final words were, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." In 1889, Frederick MacMonnies was invited by the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution to compete for a statue commission of Nathan Hale to be placed in City Hall Park, New York. He was to submit a three foot plaster model adhering to the following guidelines, "a well-built young man of American type, dressed in simple costume of the end of the last Century...at the moment immediately preceding his execution by the British." (M. Smart, A Flight with Fame: The Life and Art of Frederick MacMonnies, Madison, Connecticut, 1996, p. 86) As no portrait of Hale is known to exist, MacMonnies was left to his creative devices to render an image of the national hero. He chose to present him as an idealized, defiant figure. MacMonnies won the competition and produced a bronze approximately 8 feet tall. The present work is one of several reduced size models that MacMonnies produced.