Bacchante and Infant Faun. . Frederick William MacMonnies, American (1863-1937). American, circa 1893-1894. Bronze with brow...

Description

Bacchante and Infant Faun

Frederick William MacMonnies, American (1863-1937)
American, circa 1893-1894
Bronze with brown patina
Incised: Signature of artist
34 inches in height

An exuberant nude young woman, her right toes on the ground, her right arm holding a bunch of grapes high over her head, her left knee pushing upward in a dancing motion, her left hand securing a nude infant in the crook of her elbow.
MacMonnies gifted his first (and larger) cast of this statue to American architect Charles Follen McKin in appreciation for a $50.00 loan that enabled MacMonnies to travel abroad in 1884. McKim was unsuccessful in placing the piece in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library due to a storm of public protest created by temperance unions, clergy, and other angry Bostonians due to the statute's "drunken indecency." McKim then offered Bacchante to the Metropolitan Museum in May, 1897, and its board of trustees eagerly accepted it.

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