Lot 1227: A patinated bronze sculpture: Making a SpearpointCasper Mayer (American, 1871-1931)circa 1899 Fine Furniture, Silver, Decorative Arts & Clocks

With greenish-black patina, inscribed to the rear of the base C. Mayer Sc. / 1899, entitled to the side Negro making spearpoint, and with the Ruquet-Janitschek foundry stamp. height 12 1/2in (31.5cm); width 13 1/2in (34.5cm); depth 8 1/4in (21cm)

Glenn B. Opitz (ed.), Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Dealers Choice Books, 1986, pp. 596-597 Born in Bavaria in 1871, Mayer studied with John Q.A. Ward, the great genre and portrait sculptor and president of the National Academy of Design. Mayer received a Silver Medal at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. He created anthropological groups for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the present sculpture is likely one of these.