Bronze Age Gold from Wales

The Sluggard

This bronze was inspired by one of Leighton’s models stretching after a sitting and is also called ‘An Athlete Awakening from Sleep’. The original life-size version (Tate) was widely admired, and reproduced in a one-third size edition.

New sculpture is a name applied to the sculptures produced by a group of artists working in the second half of the nineteenth century The term was coined by critic Edmund Gosse in an 1876 article in Art Journal titled The New Sculpture in which he identified this new trend in sculpture. Its distinguishing qualities were a new dynamism and energy as well as physical realism, mythological or exotic subject matter and use of symbolism, as opposed to prevailing style of frozen neoclassicism. It can be considered part of symbolism. The keynote work was seen by Gosse as Lord Fredrick Leighton’s Athlete Wrestling with a Python, but the key artist was Sir Alfred Gilbert followed by Sir George Frampton. An Important precursor was Michelangelesque work of Alfred Stevens.

Collection Area

Art

Item Number

NMW A 122

Creation/Production

LEIGHTON, Frederick
Date: 1882-1885

Acquisition

Gift, 20/10/1930
Given by Sir William Goscombe John

Measurements

Height (cm): 52

Techniques

bronze
Techniques (sculpture)
Fine Art - sculpture

Material

bronze

Location

In store
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