AN ENGLISH BRONZE FIGURE ENTITLED 'COMEDY AND TRAGEDY'

Begun in February 1891 and inspired by W. S. Gilbert's play of the same name, then in revival at the Lyceum, Alfred Gilbert's Comedy and Tragedy represents the final work in his series of autobiographical bronzes which begun with Perseus Arming and continued with Icarus. Using as his metaphor a prop boy stung by a bee as he carries a mask of Comedy, it represents Gilbert's professional, financial and domestic difficulties being concealed behind a mask of success and contentment. A polychromed plaster version of the model was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1892 and bronzes casts in two sizes (the present bronze being an example of the largest) were subsequently produced by the Compagnie des Bronzes, Brussels.
The absence of any signature or mark to this example possibly identifies it as having been produced before 1903 when Gilbert started marking his bronzes.
(R. Dorment, Alfred Gilbert, Sculptor and Goldsmith, London, Royal Academy, exh. cat., 1986, pp. 116-8).