£5,750
Auction: 8 June 2022 at 14:00 BST
carved marble, the disk-shaped head on a long tapering neck, with a sqaure shaped body
Provenance:
From the estate of Clodagh Waddington (1945 - 2019), London, United Kingdom, previously with Leslie Waddington by 1992. Please note that a letter detailing the provenance in further detail will be provided to the winning buyer.
Note:
The anonymous Bronze Age sculptor who produced this beautiful schematic idol has reduced the human form to a mere suggestion. The sense of abstraction offered by the ancient Bronze Age idols of Anatolia and the Cyclades stimulated many of the great twentieth century artists, including Brancusi, Modigliani, and Picasso. Perhaps the artist most closely linked with these ancient forms was the Scottish sculptor and painter William Turnbull. There are many suggestions of these influences in his work, perhaps none is more overt than Large Siren, a monumental bronze celebrating the evocative content of primitive art, its form closely following the "Violin" idol seen overleaf (lot 17). Interestingly, lots 15, 16 & 17 all originate from the estate of the late Clodagh Waddington, wife of Leslie Waddington, co-founder and chairman of Waddington Galleries (later Waddington Custot Galleries) who exhibited and championed William Turnbull’s work for more than four decades.