Books + Art - Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Circe at the Paris Salon, 1893
Photographer unknown / Artist: MACKENNAL, Bertram (1863-1931)
# 723
Silver gelatin print photograph (285 x 200 mm) in original glazed frame (465 x
365 mm), circa 1893. Printed captions on the mount above and below image;
signed in pen in period hand lower right: ‘Dear Felix - love from Dodo’ (Felix
Meyer, the Melbourne art patron); accompanied by a handwritten copy of
a letter from Bertram Mackennal (‘Dodo’) to Felix Meyer, a highly revealing
communication regarding the exhibiting of Circe at the Paris Salon, Mackennal’s
struggle for recognition, private patronage and the lack of appreciation and
support for his work in Australia.
Mackennal was Australia’s pre-eminent sculptor of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century, his highly refined and elegant style drawing inspiration from
the Art Nouveau and Symbolist movements. Perhaps his most celebrated -
and most powerful - sculpture was his figure of ‘Circe’, the sorceress of Greek
mythology, which was first exhibited as a full-size plaster statue in Paris in 1893.
This photograph of the statue, with its caption in French (and plaque with
accolade of ‘Mention Honorable’), was taken at the Paris Salon in May 1893
(Mackennal was based in France from 1891-94). When Circe was later shown
at the Royal Academy in London (1894) she caused a scandal - the lascivious,
writhing figures around the base were covered by the Academy committee.
The statue was to become an important work in the New Sculpture movement
around this time, and several editions of Circe in the form of smaller statuettes
were cast in bronze and sold on the art market.
$ 2,850
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