
Christopher Dawson
Head of Department
Sold for £32,000 inc. premium
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Provenance
Sir Cyril and Lady Judy Denman Taylor
Sale; Lyon and Turnbull, London, 27 March 2019
Talos is described as the guardian of Crete, a being cast of bronze whose task was to wade around the island driving off potential enemies by flinging large boulders. Ayrton, sceptical by nature and with the disillusion common to the generation who grew up in the shadows of two World Wars commented of his sentinel figures that '[their] guardianship is, of course, a fiction [but] a certain tranquillity lies in [their] stupid presence ... [they have] no brains and no arms, but look powerful'. This final, culminating figure, close to life size, angular and menacing, might indeed foster an illusion of comfort for those who need to believe in a place of safety.
Only two casts of the declared edition of three were ever made; the present cast and another cast which was given anonymously to the City of Cambridge in 1973 and remains sited on Guildhall Street.
We are grateful to Justine Hopkins for compiling this catalogue entry.