Lot 13: ALEXANDER MUNRO

ALEXANDER MUNRO BRITISH 1825 - 1871 JOSEPHINE BUTLER signed: ALEX MUNRO Sc plaster 68cm., 26 3/4 in.

The Butler Family

Alexander Munro met George and Josephine Butler when he was working on the statues for the Oxford Museum. The couple became friendly with the sculptor and Josephine recalled 'Munro worked not infrequently on the clay models of portrait busts he was engaged with'. Munro completed three different portraits of Josephine. The marble version of this portrait is in the collection of Girton College Cambridge.

Josephine Butler was a passionate social reformer and led the Ladies' National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which sought to defend women accused of prostitution from being detained in a Lock Hospital. She also campaigned to defend children from abuse. Butler was a fervent Christian as well as a feminist and famously declared: 'God and one woman make a majority.' She is celebrated in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30th May.

RELATED LITERATURE
B. Read & J. Barnes, Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture, London, 1991, no. 24, p. 114