ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 28th May 2025

100 83 RORY BRESLIN (B.1963) The Somerset Mask Bronze, 43 x 25 x 65cm (h) (17 x 9¾ x 25½”) Edition no. 2/5 € 4,000 - 6,000 The Somerset Mask is an interpretation of the River-God keystone on the South Wing of Som- erset House on the Victoria Embankment. Vigor- ously modelled, the face reveals an interesting fusion of baroque energy and classical control. Apples, berries, damsons and waterweed fes- toon the ribbed and fluted cornucopia on either side of an august yet slightly portentous visage. Appropriately, the contents of the cornucopia, given its position, have an extra wear and fluidity that the weather and the rain have exerted on the sculpture over the centuries. This liquidity is further manifested in the beard, redolent of a flowing brook that ends in the aquatic whirls and eddies at the base of the mask. This depiction is of Achelous, which in Greek my- thology was the god of all fresh water, is appo- sitely placed as a counter-point to the depiction of the saline keystone of Ocean centred on the Northern facade of Somerset House. Defeated by Heracles as a suitor for Deianeira, Achelous, when he transformed himself into a bull, had one of his horns torn off which forced his surrender. Heracles gave it to the Naiads, who transformed it into the cornucopia. Somerset House was designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776. The riverside wing was finished in 1786. At the time of construction, the Thames was not embanked and the river lapped the South Wing, where the great arch allowed boats and barges to pass under the river-god to landing places within the building. Originally carved by either Joseph Wilton or Agostino Carlini, founding members of the Royal Acad- emy; according to Joseph Baretti in his Guide through the Royal Academy (1780), “the whole of the carvings in the various fronts of Somerset Place — excepting Bacon’s bronze figures — were carved from finished drawings made by [Giovan- ni Battista] Cipriani.”