Lot 306: Charles Sargeant Jagger , Chemistry (or The Chemist) Bronze, Wood

signed bronze with dark brown patina on wood base

height (excluding base): 40cm.; 15¾in.

London, The Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, The Charles Sargeant Jagger Memorial Exhibition , 21 May - 20 June 1935, no. 14, illustrated p.16, for sale at 50 gns, touring to Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Lincoln, Wakefield, Halifax, Dunfermline, Rochdale, Perth, Hull, Doncaster and Stockport;
Halifax, Bankfield Museum, The Art of the Jagger Family , 26 August-23 September, 1939-1940, no.3 (another cast), touring to Burton, Darlington, Lincoln, Rotherham and Sunderland;
London, Imperial War Museum, Charles Sargeant Jagger War and Peace Sculpture Centenary Exhibition 1885-1985 , 1 May-29 September 1985 (another cast);
Sheffield, Mappin Art Gallery, Charles Sargeant Jagger , 19 October-30 November 1985, no.40 (another cast).

Ann Compton, The Sculpture of Charles Sargeant Jagger, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, 2004, no.75 p.126.

Conceived in 1928-9, the present work is a cast of the working model for the monumental Portland stone figure for Imperial Chemical House, Millbank. The working model was cast in an edition of two in 1935 with one further cast taken in 1937. Unlike Marine Transport, which was accepted virtually unchanged for the final sculpture, Chemistry underwent various changes before its final state. The original concept was for the figure to be prising open the hand representing Nature to reveal its bounty, whilst in the present work we see this changed to a gentler process of mutual respect between the laboratory coat clad figure and the hand of Nature.