EDWARD ONSLOW FORD, R.A. (ENGLISH, 1852-1901)

Born in Islington, Onslow Ford studied in Antwerp and Munich before returning to London where he became an essential figure in the ‘New Sculpture Movement’, alongside his studio neighbour Alfred Gilbert, with whom Onslow Ford experimented with lost-wax bronze casting. Today Onslow Ford is perhaps best known for his portraits, most notably his marble bust of Queen Victoria (1899), Windsor Castle and his bronze monument to Victoria commissioned for the city of Manchester (1901). However, the artist also spent many years working a series of nudes including Folly (1886), Peace (1891), and Still as a Bud whose Petals close (1895), which are recognized for their high degree of realism which was balanced with an inherent warmth, and often melancholy (see S. Beattie, The New Sculpture, 1983, p. 242). Understood to be sculpted just before this series began, it is believed that the model for the present bronze was first exhibited at the Thirty-Fourth Exhibition of Works of Modern Artists, The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1895, as 'Bronze torso’. An interesting comparison, a portrait of Onslow Ford by John McLure Hamilton (1853-1936) of the sculptor working on another cropped, nude female torso but in a differing composition to the present lot and dated 1893 is in the National Portrait Gallery, London (inv. NPG 4391).