Bronze Age Gold from Wales

This rare portrait bust is by the Welsh sculptor, Goscombe John. It depicts Bokani, who was one of six Congolese Pygmies brought to Europe in 1905. The group aroused intense curiosity and were shown to the public at packed venues in towns and cities throughout the UK, including Wales. While they mainly appeared in music halls, they also went to Buckingham Palace and were even displayed at a zoo. Amongst other works, the Bokani has been part of a display intervention staged by Kick the Dust’s Youth Heritage project. Through a series of workshops, participants felt that the people represented in these works, including Bokani, were classed as objects and identified only through association with empire and colonialism or through Goscombe John. They wanted to highlight the sitters as individuals in their own right through their stories and experiences. Label from '[un]seen [un]heard]' display intervention 2020: "Bokani was one of a group of six Congolese Pygmies brought to Britain as so-called living specimens for an ethnological showcase. Viewed as a spectacle, and not speaking English, meant their performances focused on their differences. During their stay, they also toured a number of places in Wales, including Barmouth and Aberystwyth in 1906."

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.