Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)

Nymph and Bittern was originally conceived by Thomas Eakins in 1876 as a wax model and still exists in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a gift from the artist's wife. In 1930, Mrs. Eakins and Samuel Murray, a close friend of the artist and respected sculptor in Philadelphia, had a plaster cast made of the model and presented it to Seymour Adelman, a friend and Eakins collector. Three bronze casts were made from the model in 1965 by Mr. Adelman. One he gave to the artist Leonard Baskin, another to the dealer, Herman Shickman and the third was bequeathed by him to the Bryn Mawr College Museum.