The garden statue bought in a job lot for 7 guineas that sold for £6.82m
The Arts Society Newbury lecture: The Dancing Faun: the personal story of a masterpiece
at Arlington Arts, Snelsmore
Review by ALAN CHILDS
AS a young man, Bertie Pearce would lean his bike against the plinth in his grandfather’s garden supporting the statue of a dancing faun, bought in a job lot for seven guineas.
His cousin would take potshots at it with his air rifle. Luckily, he was a poor shot, because after 40 years in an English country garden, the dancing faun was sold for £6.82m.
The extraordinary story of the 31-inch faun, its journey from 16th century Prague to Crowborough in East Sussex, and then to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, enthralled members of The Arts Society Newbury.
Mr Pearce, historian and Gold Star member of the Inner Magic Circle, told the story his family kept secret for 30 years after anonymously selling the work by the bronze artist Adriaen de Vries, court sculptor to the Holy Roman Emperor.
As well as explaining the intricate and occasionally dangerous work of bronze sculpting, Mr Pearce unveiled a chain of events that would grace a novel, after his grandfather decided to sell the statues – including the as-yet-unrecognised faun – in his garden following a tip-off that a gang were planning to raid it. Armed police hid in the bushes, but the gang were tipped off about the tip-off.
Nevertheless, the statues went up for auction with Christie’s, where a board member – who had just been to Prague – saw the statue in her own catalogue, recognised the beauty and elegance of a master and wanted it investigated.
Somewhere in the faun’s lost history, the Victorians had removed the parts they considered unseemly and replaced them with a cork.
A bibulous board member happened to have a corkscrew to hand and the cork was removed, revealing the terracotta interior, which could be dated in a way the bronze could not.
The faun turned out to be an acrobat, sculpted as a measure of human grace for the foremost collector of the time. Now it is the poster boy for the J Paul Getty Museum’s gallery of European sculpture. And nobody leans their bike against it nor – even in the US – shoots at it.
Next lecture: The Many Faces of William Morris, January 23
theartssocietynewbury.org.uk
