Hiram Powers (American, 1805-1873): A carved white marble bust of Proserpine

Footnotes

Provenance:
Acquired by the vendor whilst working in the building trade in the North East of England approximately forty years again.

Arguably one of the greatest American sculptors of the 19th century, Hiram Powers first achieved international recognition for his near life-size figure of 'The Greek Slave' in 1844. It became one of the most famous Orientalist works of art in the world and was taken on a tour of America in the late 1840's, as well as holding pride of place in the United States contribution to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.

Powers was a Swedenborgian or 'New Churchman' believing that 'the legitimate aim of art should be spiritual and not animal' and that 'the natural body was merely a veil over the soul and spiritual body'. This belief inspired him to create 'ideal' sculpture representing an archetypal beauty which is certainly obvious in the present lot.

Proserpine was the daughter of Ceres (Summer) and the goddess of Spring. According to classical myth she was abducted by Pluto, the god of the underworld and held prisoner for four months, her release ending Winter and inducing the start of Spring. Power's bust of 'Proserpine' was perhaps his most popular sculpture and was conceived as the second of a pair of classical busts. The sculptor had been considering a pendant ideal bust to pair with his bust of Ginerva which was completed in 1838 but did not begin actual work on his bust of 'Proserpine' until receiving a commission from Philadelphia publisher Edward L. Carey in 1843. His first version of the model depicted Proserpine emerging from a basket of spring flowers and this version is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (acc.no. 1978-18-1a). However, because of the work involved with carving the intricate flowers of this version, his second version replaced them with acanthus leaves and a similarly decorated socle. The bust proved so popular that Powers created numerous examples, offering them in life-size and two-thirds' life size models. The demand was however so great in the end that he altered the bust again in 1849, removing the acanthus leaves and the replacing them with a simple beaded border, for which he charged a reduced fee. There is an example of the second version with acanthus leaves in the Washington D.C., NMAA, and of the third version with beaded border in Washington, joseph H. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Reduced versions are also known, which omit the bust and depict only the head and shoulders. An example is in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.

Related Literature
R. P. Wunder, Hiram Powers Vermont Sculptor, 1805 -1873, Newark, Delaware, 1990, page 187-204.

A very similar bust of 'Prosperine' was sold in these rooms on the 13th December 2012, Fine European Furniture, Sculpture & Works of Art as lot 227 for £40,000 plus BP
Further busts of the same model were sold at Christie's New York on the 1 December 2005 as lot 79, and Christie's New York, 19 May 2005 as lot 154.