Lot 226: Sir George James Frampton, English (1860-1928) A Bronze Figure of Peter Pan

standing on a naturalistically modelled base, his arms outstretched, playing a pipe, mounted on a Swedish green marble base, the bronze monogrammed GF and with an encircled PP, dated 1920, the bronze 48cm high (18.5" high), the base 4cm high (1.5" high).

The above lot is one of the limited number of reductions made between 1913-1925 of the life size bronze of Peter Pan exhibited by Frampton at the The Royal Academy in 1911 and erected by an anonymous donor in Kensington Gardens the following year. The statue was erected on the spot in Kensington Gardens where Peter Pan appears nightly in J. M Barrie's first book featuring Peter, Little White Bird (1901). Barrie was responsible for the commission, the figure of Peter was supposed to be modelled on Michael Llewellyn-Davies, one of the five brothers who inspired the story. Barrie sent Frampton pictures of Michael dressed as Peter Pan from which to work but Frampton is not thought to have modelled Peter Pan on Llewellyn Davies as intended but instead used another boy, possibly James W. Shaw or William A. Harwood.

The statue was erected overnight on 1 May 1912 in secrecy with no advance publicity, Barrie placed an advert in The Times stating:

"There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the south-western side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find a May-day gift by Mr J.M. Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around. It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and the bronze figure of the boy who would never grow up is delightfully conceived."

The public statue has the figure standing upon a rocky base with fairies, rabbits, mice and squirrels covering the base. The statue was much admired and quickly become a favourite landmark for many adults and children, and is often considered to be the most popular statue in London. Other lifesize versions of the statue were later erected in Sefton Park, Liverpool, Canada, Brussels, Australia and New Jersey. It was the obvious widespread popular appeal of the statue that led Frampton to produce the reductions of the main figure.