A BRONZE FIGURE OF A CLASSICAL WOMAN

Bertram Mackennal (1863-1931) was born in Melbourne, Australia, but came to England in 1882 studying in London and then afterwards in Paris, where he was influenced by the Symbolist and Romanticist movements. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1886, was elected A.R.A. in 1909 and R.A. in 1922, having been knighted the previous year. Mackennal's work was diverse indeed, and ranged from the Boer War monument at Highbury and the equestrian statue of King Edward VII in Waterloo Place, to coinage profiles of King George V, and Symbolist works such as his acclaimed Circe. It is to this genre that the bronze in this lot belongs'.