Peace. Edward Onslow Ford, R. A. (1852-1901). c. 1890. Bronze, dark brown patina on a marble. 20½ inches (52.7 cm.) [Click on images to enlarge them.]
One of his series of Ideal nudes, Onslow Ford's full-size plaster of Peace was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887 (no. 1944), where it was considered by the critic Edmund Gosse to be "the most delightful contribution to the exhibition". Three years later a life-size bronze was shown (now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). In Gosse's 1895 article in Magazine of Art, entitled "Sculpture in the House", Peace was illustrated alongside statuettes by Leighton and Thornycroft in domestic settings, and was subsequenty one of Ford's first works to be cast by Arthur L. Collie" (28). In 1975 Sotheby's Belgravia auctioned a cast missing the palm frond.
Photograph, caption, and commentary from Robert Bowman, Sir Alfred Gilbert and the New Sculpture (2008). Robert Bowman and the Fine Art Society, London, have most generously given their permission to use information, images, and text from the catalogue named above in the Victorian Web. Copyright on text and images from their catalogues remains, of course, with them. [GPL]
Bibliography
Bowman, Robert. Sir Alfred Gilbert and the New Sculpture. London: The Fine Art Society, 2008.
Important Arts and Crafts Furniture and Works of Art, English, Foreign and European Bronzes 1830-1930.. Sale catalogue of 18 May 1975. London: Sotheby's Belgravia, 1975. No. 34.
Sale catalogue. London: Shepherd Gallery, 1983. No. 77
Created 1 September 2003
Last modified 30 January 2020