Paul Howard Manship

Actaeon

Auction Closed

April 20, 05:26 PM GMT

Estimate

300,000 - 500,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Paul Howard Manship

1885 - 1966

Actaeon

bronze with partial-gilding

28 in. (71.1 cm.) high on a 1¼🔯 in. (3.2 cm.) marble base

Conceived in 1924.

Estate of Margaret Leech Pulitzer, New York

Sotheby Parke-Bernet New Y𒉰ork, December 12, 1975, lot 141

Wolf Family Collectio🌌n No. 0047 (acquired frꦏom the above)

Edwin Murtha, Paul Manship, New York, 1957, no. 155, p. 164
Exh. Cat., St. Paul, Minnesota, Minnesota Museum of Art, Changing Taste in America, 1985, no. 46, pp. 30, 72-73, 75, illustration of another cast
John Manship, Paul Manship, New York, 1989, pp. 101, 111, 113, another cast mentioned
Susan Rather, Archaism, Modernism, and the Art of Paul Manship, Austin, 1993, p. 160, another cast mentioned

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 2008-23 (on loan)

There is a story in Greek mythology, as published in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which the hunter Actaeon accidentally stumbles across the godde♌ss Diana (also known as Artemis) while bathing in the woods. Known for her modesty, Diana punishes the young huntsman by turning him i♔nto a stag. Unable to recognize their owner in his new animal form, Actaeon’s own hounds pursue and kill him.

The present work narrates the dramatic moment in which the hounds attack Actaeon. Paul Manship depicts Actaeon mid-transformation, his sculpte😼d human body having already grown the horns of a stag. The strong diagonal of Actaeo🧸n’s raised arm and outstretched leg is mirrored by the dog at rear, who scales the hunter’s body as he prepares to pounce. Manship excels in capturing a great deal of energy within this bronze, which signals the movement and haste of this mythological tale.