AN ENGLISH MARBLE LIFE SIZE FIGURE OF VENUS AT THE BATH

Wyatt was a virtuoso carver of life size figures and groups, and was best known for single female figures. In a tribute following his friend's death, John Gibson said of Wyatt: ‘he acquired the purest style and his statues were highly finished. Female figures were his forte and he was clever in composition and the harmony of lines. No sculptor in England has produced female statues to be compared to those by Wyatt’ (Lady Eastlake, Life of John Gibson, R.A., Sculptor, London, 1870, p. 130). A marble figure identical to the present lot is in the collection of The Detroit Institute of Arts (77.82).