A MID-VICTORIAN WHITE MARBLE FIGURAL GROUP OF A CHILD AND DOG, ENTITLED 'GO TO SLEEP'

The present marble figural group 'Go to Sleep' by Joseph Durham (d. 1877) is possibly the one exhibited at the International Exhibition, London in 1862. The model – one of Durham's singular representations of innocence that reflected the Victorian ideal of middle class childhood – was created by Durham in 1861, and exhibited that year at the Royal Academy from where it was almost certainly sold to 'F. Bennoch, Esq.', probably Francis Bennoch (d. 1890), head of a wholesale silk business in Wood Street, London, and self-proclaimed patron of authors and literati (H. Graves, A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904, London, 1905, p. 394). Only one other marble version with the same dimensions is known, dated 1863, now in the Brooklyn Museum, New York (41.980.28). From 1835 until 1878, Durham exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, showing 128 pieces in his lifetime. In 1858, he won the competition for a memorial to be erected in London's Hyde Park to commemorate the Great Exhibition of 1851, which, after the death of Prince Albert, he redesigned with a copper electrotype statue of Albert made by Elkington at its centre.