Alfred Stevens

Sir Alexander and Lady Rosalind Gertrude Maitland, 6 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, by circa 1960;

Bequeathed to Lady Catherine Henderson, Hensol, Castle Douglas, circa 1960-2010;

Thence by descent;

Sotheby's, London, 5 December 2012, lot 166;

Where acquired.

Alfred Stevens was one of the most talented sculptors to work in Britain during the mid-19th century. Stevens was heavily influenced by Italian Renaissance sculpture, in particular Michelangelo's works, which he encountered when he was living in Italy, between 1833-42. In the years following his death, Stevens came to be recognised as one of the fathers of the New Sculpture movement, which heralded the rebirth of British sculpture at the end of the 19^thcentury.

‪Michelangelo's influence on Stevens is clearly discernible in these fine casts of his Truth and Falsehood ‪and Valour and Cowardice‪, with their monumental forms and sketchy modelling. These dynamic models were designed to frame the equestrian portrait of the Duke of Wellington, surmounting Stevens' colossal Wellington Monument ‪at St Paul's Cathedral, London. The proud female figures which crown the groups personify the Duke's guiding virtues. In the first, Truth wrenches Falsehood's tongue from his mouth. He struggles in vain to resist her, as tail writhes and his mask of deception is pushed back to reveal his true face. In the second, Valour holds the club of Hercules, her head draped in the hero's lion skin, recalling the Capitoline bust of Commodus as Hercules; she calmly sits on a mighty shield, crushing her antithesis, Cowardice.

The Wellington Monument ‪was ‪borne out of a competition held by the British government in 1856 to build a permanent monument to Napoleon's victor. Stevens' plaster and wax model, today in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. 44-1878), was initially ranked joint fourth, but went on to win the commission, when the judges concluded that the design was the most sympathetic to Wren's interior. One contemporary critic praised the way that the 'vanquished figures were flung out from the pile with a boldness and terrific spirit' (Penny, op. cit. p. 161). Stevens sadly didn't live to see the monument completed. After years of conflict with the Office of Public Works, it was finally inaugurated in 1912.

All of the bronze casts of the present models are believed to be posthumous, and were most likely cast from plaster casts taken from the original clay models; this accounts for their attractively impressionistic modelling. Casts exist in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. nos. 264 and 265-1896), National Galleries of Scotland (inv. no. 2057) and Ashmolean Museum (inv. nos. 571 and 572). The present casts were owned by the celebrated collector, Sir Alexander Maitland. Another pair were purchased by the important American arts patron Grenville L. Winthrop, and are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 1943. 1123).

RELATED LITERATURE

K. R. Towndrow, Alfred Stephens. Architectural Sculptor, Painter and Designer‪, London, 1939, pp. 122-35, 157-66, 188-210, 232-48, pls. 22, 40a-b; S. Beattie, Alfred Stevens 1817-75, London, 1975, p. 12, figs. 42, 44-5; N. Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum. 1540 to the Present Day, Oxford, 1992, vol. iii, pp. 161-2, nos. 571, 572; T. Sladen, Alfred Stevens: Master of Design, 2025; S. Wolohojian (ed.), A Private Passion. 19th-century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University‪, exhib. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Haven/ Yale, 2003, pp. 427-30, nos, 192 and 193; D. Bilbey and M. Trusted, British Sculpture 1470-2000. A Concise Catalogue of the Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum‪, London, 2002, pp. 375-9, nos. 576, 578-585