201
Important Irish Art
,
wednesday 4th December 2013 at 6pm
162 John Henry Foley RHA RA (1818-1874)
Youth at the Stream
Bronze, rich red-brown patina, 54.5cm(21½”) high
Inscribed and dated “J.H. Foley Sculp. Executed for The Art
Union of London, 1846”
Literature:
Victorian Sculpture
by B. Read, 1982, p65;
The Bronze Statuettes of the Art Union of London: The
Rise and Decline of Victorian Taste in Sculpture
, Apollo,
May 1985, p328-337; and
A Dictionary of Irish Artists
by W.G. Strickland,
p357-365
Born in Dublin, the son of a grocer, John Henry Foley entered
the Royal Dublin Society Schools in 1833 and subsequently
the Royal Academy Schools from 1835, studying under Rich-
ard Westmacott (1775-1856). He exhibited there from 1839 and
first attracted attention at the R.A. in 1840 with his
Innocence
and
Bacchus
, showing the influence of Etienne Maurice Falconet
(1716-1791). He was to carry on producing works in this genre,
culminating in
Youth at the Stream
.These idealised sculptures are
delicately executed and elegantly attenuated showing a Manner-
ist influence.The Art Union (later the Art Journal), Foley’s most
consistent critic and champion, considered
Youth at the Stream
to
be the most beautiful work at the R.A. exhibition in 1844 and, in
1846, commissioned a statuette version of it in bronze of which
this is one.
Foley also sent
Youth at the Steam
to an exhibition in Westminster
Hall in 1844, which resulted in his selection by the Commission-
ers, along with Calder Marshall and John Bell, to create works
in sculpture for the new Houses of Parliament. His political
portraits, in particular, that of John Hampden, led to his rapid
ascension to the status of the pre-eminent sculptor of mid-Victo-
rian Britain. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in
1849 and a full member in 1858.
€2,000 - 4,000
