A Pair of Owls
August Gaul (1869 - 1921)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1905 (signed and dated)
Materials
Bronze, glass and porphyry
Measurements
216 x 127 x 108 mm (8 1/2 x 4 1/4 x 5 in)
Place of origin
Berlin
Order this imageCollection
Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire
NT 1274934
Summary
A pair of bronze owls by August Gaul (1869-1922), sculpted in 1905, perched on an irregular porphyry block. The owl on the left has yellow glass eyes and perches on its right leg, while the right owl has orange glass eyes and stands on both legs. Signed and dated on the reverse of the right owl: 'A. Gaul 1905'. Gaul was one of the foremost animal sculptors of the day and a founder-member of the Berlin Secession. The owls originally took pride of place on the mantelpieces of the Shaws’ London flats (Adelphi Terrace, thereafter Whitehall Court), and were among the artefacts Shaw specifically requested to be brought to Shaw’s Corner in 1945 when he was re-arranging the interiors after Charlotte’s death.
Full description
The significance of the bronze owls by the German sculptor August Gaul lies in what it tells us about Bernard Shaw’s relationships with some of the most important designers and photographers of the day. One of these was the American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966), who was commissioned by Shaw to photograph the sculpture in 1906, soon after it was acquired. Coburn had recently travelled to Meudon to witness Shaw being sculpted by Rodin, and photographed Shaw nude assuming the pose of Rodin’s famous statue ‘The Thinker’. The Shaws possibly acquired the artefact in Paris in 1906 whilst Shaw was sitting for Rodin. Charlotte Shaw’s diaries from November 1906 record the date when the photographs of the Gaul sculpture of the owls were taken by Coburn. Copies of these images survive in the Shaw photographic collection at LSE, recording both front and rear view. (NT 1715252.138/9). It is known that the owls were kept in the Shaws’ London flat, as an entry in the Adelphi Terrace Inventory of 1908 reads: ‘pair of bronze owls on red porphyry base by August Gaul.’ (Adelphi Terrace Inventory, 1908, f.31). Many years later in 1945 when Shaw was re-arranging the interiors of Shaw’s Corner prior to the opening of the house by the National Trust, he asked his secretary Blanche Patch to bring the Gaul owl sculpture to Ayot from London, along with the Rodin bust and other treasures. In 1946 the owls can be seen on the drawing room mantelpiece in various press photographs taken to celebrate Shaw’s 90th birthday, placed alongside the Oscar and Shakespeare Staffordshire figurine. Other important relationships are reflected through the owls, particularly Shaw’s friendships with William Morris and the Arts and Crafts architect Philip Webb. Shaw humorously placed one of the Coburn photographs of the owls (rear view) into a display of a group of four prints of birds and animals by Webb which adorned the mantelpiece surround in the drawing-room at Adelphi Terrace. These were prints of Webb’s designs for the creatures featured in the Morris & Co. tapestry The Forest (1887): the hare, fox, raven, and peacock. Today the original drawings can be seen at Wightwick Manor, having been acquired by the National Trust. The five prints (including the Coburn owls) were kept by Shaw for many years above the fireplace surround in the drawing-room at Adelphi Terrace, photographed by E.O. Hoppé in 1923. (Reproduced as the frontispiece in Archibald Henderson, Table-Talk of G.B.S., 1925). Shaw was known to be a lover of birds and animals, and shared Morris’s love of the natural world. There are numerous woodcuts and prints of different birds at Shaw’s Corner, besides a glass inkpot in the shape of an owl in the study, and an oil painting of mallards by Sir Peter Scott in the dining room. Originally a copy of Albrecht Dürer’s The Little Owl was kept on the drawing room mantelpiece, however today only his Hare can be seen.(Alice McEwan, 2020)
Provenance
Purchased by Bernard and Charlotte Shaw in 1906; thence among Shaw's possessions at the Shaws’ London residences until 1945 when brought to Shaw’s Corner. The Shaw Collection. The house and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust by George Bernard Shaw in 1950, together with Shaw's photographic archive.
Credit line
National Trust Collections (Shaw’s Corner, The George Bernard Shaw Collection)
Marks and inscriptions
Rear of right owl: 'A. Gaul 1905'
Makers and roles
August Gaul (1869 - 1921), sculptor