Frederick William Pomeroy 1856-1924
bronze with dark brown patina
Further images
Provenance
Acquired by the collector William Vivian
By descent to Prudence Molesworth-St Aubyn
Thence by descent to the present owners
Literature
B. Coleman, The Best of British Arts & Crafts, Atglen, PA, 2004, pp. 11, 13-15 (another cast)
M. Hamnett, ‘The Albert Dawson Collection: a Handley-Read Legacy’, The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, 2016, vol. 40, p. 102, fig. 9 (another cast)
The present work is one of the great examples of the New Sculpture movement which dominated British sculpture at the end of the 19th century, characterised by its idealised classical subjects and naturalistic poses. The hero Perseus dramatically holds aloft the head of Medusa, turning away to avoid being turned to stone by the gaze of the Gorgon. Inspired by Cellini’s bronze of the same subject, Pomeroy’s imagining of Perseus is also indebted to Mercié’s David Vainqueur, exhibited at the Salon of 1872, which Pomeroy must have seen when he was studying in Paris.
Pomeroy exhibited a full-size plaster version of this subject at the Royal Academy in 1898 and a full-size bronze which is held in the collection of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. He subsequently produced a series of bronze reductions including the present example. Another cast of this size, originally in the Handley-Read collection, is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (A.9-1972).