Lot 86: THOMAS NELSON MACLEAN (BRITISH, 1845-1894) COMEDY

Signed and dated T. MacLean Sculpt 1885 White marble 147 cm (57 3/4 in) MacLean's sculptures represent an intermediate style between late neo-classicism and New Sculpture. He was apprenticed to Carrier-Belleuse in Paris, which gave his work an element of French assurance he was never to lose, and he worked with Armstead after 1870. He was influenced by painters such as Albert Moore and Alma-Tadma; he reproduced the two dancers in the latter's Spring Festival in bronze and marble. MacLean exhibited a marble statuette of Comedy at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition in 1886, which also included Leighton`s Sluggard, Gilbert`s Enchanted Chair, Onslow Ford's Folly and Thornycroft's Sower. The style of this piece follows the idiom the sculptor established with his 1870 figure of Clio and continued to explore with his pendant to Comedy, the statue of Tragedy (RA 1887) and Pandora (RA 1888). Comedy dates from the time of Maclean's increasing fame and his involvement with the new gallery of Bellman & Ivey in Piccadilly which held an exhibition entirely of his work in 1885. Maclean continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1891 when he retired to Italy. Comparative Literature: Bellman & Ivey, Sculpture Marble-Bronze-Terracotta by T. Nelson MacLean, exhibition catalogue with introduction by T. Humphrey Ward, London, 1885. S. Beattie, The New Sculpture, 1983, pp185-6, 247.