Frederick William MacMonnies and Jaboeuf & Rouard, Paris
Bacchante and Infant Faun
1893
Scroll
- Artist: Frederick William MacMonnies
- Foundry: Jaboeuf & Rouard, Paris
Bacchante and Infant Faun
1893
Physical Qualities
Bronze, 32 3/4 x 12 1/4 x 16 1/2 in. (83.2 x 31.1 x 41.9 cm)
Credit Line
Friends of Art Fund
Object Number
1999.767
In 1888, Frederick William MacMonnies, who studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, opened a studio in Paris. There he created dramatic figural sculpture that found favor at the annual French salons. In 1896, his life-sized version of Bacchante and Infant Faun caused something of a scandal with an American audience that was not yet entirely comfortable with the nude. Architect Charles Follen McKim offered the bronze as a gift to adorn the new Boston Public Library, decorated by numerous international art stars including John Singer Sargent. Driven by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the outcry against the Bacchante’s “drunken indecency” prevented the Library’s acceptance of the statue, but gained the expatriate MacMonnies invaluable publicity. Today, castings of Bacchante and Infant Faun in various sizes can be found in the permanent collections of most of the large museums in the United States and France.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 1999; Haussner collection sale, Richard Opfer Auctioneering, Inc., Timonium, Maryland; The Haussner (Restaurant) Collection, Baltimore
AMW Reinstallation 2014
Inaugural Loan Collection
2001-04-22 00:00:00
2001-04-22 00:00:00
Richard Opfer Auctioneering, Inc., "The Many Faces of Haussner's," December 18, 1999, no. 137 (n.p.).
Mary Smart, "A Flight with Fame," "The Life and Art of Frederick MacMonnies (1863-1937)," Madison, CT: Soundview Press, 1996, pp. 167-175, no. 292, ill.
Hildegard Cummings, 'Chasing a Bronze Bacchante,' Bulletin 1984, The William Benton Museum of Art, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, pp. 3-19. Jonathan L. Fairbanks, et al, American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, [Northeastern University Press], 1986, pp. 293-298.
Margaret C. Conrads, American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 1990, pp. 125-127, ill.
Margaret C. Conrads, American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 1990, pp. 125-127, ill.
Inscribed: On base: 'F. MacMonnies.1894'
Markings: On base, in circular stamp: 'JABOEUF & ROUARD FONDEURS A PARIS / 10 & 12 RUE DE L'ASILE POPINCOURT'
