Bronze medallion of Bernard Shaw
Theodore Spicer- Simson (1871 - 1959)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1921
Materials
Mahogany and bronze
Measurements
8.25 ins (h)6.25 ins (w)4.75 ins (dia)
Order this imageCollection
Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire
NT 1275406.1
Summary
A circular bronze medallion of Bernard Shaw by Theodore Spicer-Simson (1871-1959), quarter-length in right profile. Gilt wood surround on mahogany plaque with hinged support behind. One of a pair of medallions: the companion piece is a medallion of Charlotte Shaw (NT 1275406.2)
Full description
A circular bronze medallion of Bernard Shaw, quarter-length in right profile. Marks and inscriptions: (To left of shoulders) GEORGE (To right) BERNARD SHAW (Below chin) T.S-S. FEC. Theodore Spicer-Simson (1871-1959) sculpted medallions of Bernard and Charlotte Shaw in 1921, commissioned by Shaw. Spicer-Simson was an American-British sculptor and medallist who lived and worked in Paris, London, and the United States. He revived the ancient art of the portrait medallion. Spicer-Simson later recalled how he met Shaw: “I called on him with a letter from Lady Scott, the widow of the great explorer of the South Pole. I had known her in Paris as Miss Katherine Bruce. She was a friend of George Bernard Shaw and had done a statuette of him so, letter in hand, I presented myself at 10 Adelphi Terrace… after I had shown Shaw some of my work he said he would sit with pleasure.” In January 1922 Shaw received the medallion and was pleased with the result, writing to Spicer-Simson: “It comes out very well in the bronze. The photograph in your last letter, the one for the American publication, is first-rate in its reproduction of the modelling.” After Spicer-Simson had finished the portrait of “GBS”, Shaw wrote to him requesting that he sculpt a medallion of Charlotte: “My wife will give you a sitting at 10.30 any morning when in town…I formally commission the medallion (in case I fall down dead or something) for two hundred pounds; not more than five casts will be required.” Shaw famously included a reproduction of his Spicer-Simson medallion on the cover of his last work Bernard Shaw’s Rhyming Picture Guide to Ayot St Lawrence, in 1950. The Shaw correspondence quoted in Theodore Spicer-Simson, A Collector of Characters: Reminiscences of Theodore Spicer-Simson (University of Miami Press, 1962).(Alice McEwan, 2020)
Provenance
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.
Marks and inscriptions
(To left of shoulders) GEORGE (To right)BERNARD.SHAW (Below chin) T.S-S FEC
Makers and roles
Theodore Spicer- Simson (1871 - 1959), sculptor