Lot 23: JOSEPH EDGAR BOEHM

JOSEPH EDGAR BOEHM BRITISH 1834 - 1890 CREMORNE signed: JE Boehm and inscribed: C ie des Bronzes Bruxelles Fonte à cire perdue l'un seul jet with multiple inscriptions relating to his races around the base bronze, dark brown patina on wood base bronze: 48 by 48cm., 19 by 19in. base: 27.5cm., 10 7/8 in.

M. Stocker, Royalist and Realist: The Life and Work of Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, London and New York, 1988, pp. 307-8

Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm R.A. was one of the most prominent sculptors in late nineteenth-century Britain. He enjoyed the patronage of Queen Victoria and was made Sculptor-in-Ordinary in 1880. Although Boehm is best known today for his portrait busts, he was also an important animalier sculptor. Cremorne, modelled in 1883, was praised by contemporary critics for the witty contrast between the elegant, classicising horse and, in the words of one critic, 'the rigidity of the conceited old groom who walks beside.' This attractive bronze group was cast by the Compagnie des Bronzes in Brussels, probably at the suggestion of the patron, Sir John Saville Lumley, who was British envoy to Brussels at the time.