The Filatrice (Girl Spinning)
Artist
Henry Kirke Brown
(American, 1814-1886)
CultureAmerican
Date1850
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 20 x 12 x 7 in. (50.8 x 30.5 x 17.8 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number95.8.2
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 211
Label TextHenry Kirke Brown American (1814-1886) Filatrice, 1850 Bronze Museum purchase 95.8.2 Brown's Filatrice, or Spinner, is a rare, early example of bronze casting in the United States. His inspiration for the figure is firmly rooted in the four years he spent in Italy in the 1840s. Dressed in a classical peplos, the spinner echoes the 5th-century B. C. sculpture that Brown would have seen while studying in Rome. Brown captured the age-old activity of spinning - traditionally woman's work - with elegance and precision. Holding a distaff and spindle, she winds yarn through her fingers onto a bobbin dangling from her left hand. His attention to careful observation and craftsmanship are also evident in the way he has subtly varied the texture of the skin and the garment, confirming his penchant for naturalism and individualizing details. Thus, he achieves a balance of classical elegance and refinement with more tangible, material concerns that would have appealed to his American buyers. ProvenancePrivate collection; Conner*Rosenkranz Gallery, New York, 1995; Purchase, Chrysler Museum of Art, 1995. Exhibition History"Treasures for the Community: The Chrysler Collects, 1989-1996," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 25,1996 - February 16, 1997. "Reopening of the Joan P. Brock Galleries," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Opening in March of 2008. Published ReferencesMary Bartlett Cowdrey, _American Academy of Fine Arts and American Art Union: Exhibition Record, 1816-1852_ (New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1953), 46, entry no. 354. Wayne Craven, "Henry Kirke Brown: His Search for an American Art in the 1840s," _The American Art Journal_ 6 (November 1972): 51-52. Michael Edward Shapiro, _Bronze Casting and American Sculpture, 1850-1900_ (Newark, Del.: The University of Delaware Press, 1985), 45-46. ISBN: 0874132185 Thaylor Tolles, _American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art_ (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), I: 44-46, no. 17. ISBN: 0870999141, 0870999230, 0300088477 Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 59, no. 30. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6
