Harriet Whitney Frishmuth

(1880-1980)

Allegra 11 5/8in high (29.5cm high), on a 1/2in high (1.27cm high) black Belgian marble base

Footnotes

Provenance
Private collection, Ohio.
Estate of the above.

Literature
National Academy of Design, Twenty-Eighth Winter Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1929, p. 22, no. 107, another example listed.
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, Members Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1966, no. 5, another example listed.
C.N. Aronson, Sculptured Hyacinths, New York, 1973, pp. 178-80, 182, 214, other examples illustrated.
The Magazine Antiques, October 1977, vol. CXII, no. 4, p. 756, another example illustrated.
The Magazine Antiques, September 1983, vol. CXXIV, p. 483, another example illustrated.
M. Forrest, Art Bronzes, West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1988, pp. 307, 463, another example illustrated.
J. Conner, J. Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio Works, 1893-1939, Austin, Texas, 1989, p. 39, another example listed.
P.H. Falk, A.A. Bien, The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design: 1901-1950, Madison, Connecticut, 1990, p. 212, another example listed.
K. Ahrens, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: Small Bronzes, exhibition catalogue, Athens, Ohio, 2001, pp. 9, 58-59, 71, no. 24, another example illustrated.
L.D. Rosenfeld, A Century of American Sculpture: The Roman Bronze Works Foundry, Atglen, Pennsylvania, 2002, pp. 226-27, no. VI-100, another example illustrated.
J. Conner, L.R. Lehmbeck, T. Tolles, F.L. Hohmann III, Captured Motion: The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: A Catalogue of Works, New York, 2006, pp. 41, 49, 78, 86, 97, 195-97, 260, other examples illustrated.

There are 52 known versions of Allegra that were produced, of which 18 including the present work were produced by Roman Bronze Works. Other examples of Allegra are found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland and the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Allegra is a superb example from Harriet Frishmuth's introspective works of the late 1920s and 1930s that beautifully demonstrates her noticeable shift during this period toward a more reticent treatment of form and psychological expression. While Frishmuth produced quiet, contemplative works throughout her career, these were often overshadowed by the exuberant, more physically active and dynamic sculptures that dominated her oeuvre in terms of their prevalence in production, volume of casts, publicity, and in the number of dedicated exhibitions and sales. The onset of the Great Depression of the 1930s, however, produced a widely pensive world view among many Americans including Frishmuth's collectors. This world view combined with a particularly self-reflective phase in Frishmuth's career generated attention toward her more subdued and physically restrained sculptures that commonly portray figures passively closing in on themselves. The tender nude Allegra was modeled in 1929 between commissions as a pendant to the animated Desha modeled in 1927. Frishmuth's Allegra depicts her famed and invaluable model, Desha Delteil (née Podgorska, 1900-1980) in a transitional repose with her right arm stretched out delicately and her left leg raised slightly anticipating her next move. Frishmuth explained her inspiration for Allegra after its completion, remarking that "there is an instant of repose in dance just before the dancer begins a new series of movements. In ballet you see this quite fleeting but nonetheless momentary pause if you observe closely enough to catch it. Desha simply did a dance and when she came to this instant of repose, she held it" (as quoted in J. Conner, L.R. Lehmbeck, T. Tolles, F.L. Hohmann III, Captured Motion: The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: A Catalogue of Works, New York, 2006, p. 195)