The wonderfully timeworn early twentieth century plaster bust of a youth or boy, retaining its original soft green paint, now handsomely abraded through decades of handling and shifting light, the whole raised on an architectural socle and surviving from the late Victorian period in beautifully decorative condition.
Unknown.
The sculptor has given him a frank, almost conversational expression, the head turned slightly and the mouth gently parted, lending him an intimacy more often found in portrait sketches than formal busts. The green paint is original and intentional: an early 20th-century decorative technique intended to imitate a light bronze/verdigris patina. Used widely in studio ateliers, theatre workshops, and educational plaster rooms of the period.
Decorative, quietly melancholic, and full of character; a lovely accent piece with that unmistakable country-house, studio-salon feel.
The surface has achieved a superb, organic patination: flecked losses, chalky passages, and small fractures to the paint layer that sit beautifully against the muted ground. There are small sections of chipped loss and pitting to various areas as one would expect but nothing of major distraction. The surviving wear is characteristic and desirable.
By appointment only.
