When I found this for sale in an online auction, the seller didn't know what it was made of. Neither did I, but I certainly recognized the sculpture as a "copy" of Paul Manship's 1914 sculpture, "Indian with Pronghorn Antelope." The seller actually lived close to my job, so I arranged to meet her to pick it up. As soon as I had my hands on it, I was fairly certain it was a bronze, though because it has a heavy clear coating that makes it feel like plastic, I wasn't 100% sure. The bow was definitely plastic however. But the good news was, I paid less for the sculpture than I had paid in gas to get to work!
Paul Manship designed and sculpted this Indian and the Pronghorn Antelope it was paired with in 1914. It depicts a nude Indian hunter, with the skin of a mountain lion draped over his leg, kneeling as he fires his bow at a leaping pronghorn antelope (which was a separate sculpture). He made it for himself, to dress up the ugly and drab mantle over the fireplace in his small New York City apartment. When he displayed it at the National Academy of Design in 1914, he was commissioned to scale it to life size and have it cast in bronze for the patron's garden, but having a brief loincloth added for modesty's sake - this now resides at the Mead Museum in Amherst, MA. Manship began to show the work and was commissioned to cast several sets of the original size sculptures in bronze. I believe about seven or eight small sets were made. While I would dearly love to own an original, I am a po little mortal, I couldn't hope to compete with the money that gets thrown at the sellers when an original of this lovely work comes up for infrequent sale - the last set of original castings sold in 2012 for a whopping $782,500. I'd have to hit a major lottery win to ever hope to afford THAT much!
This is not a direct, molded-from-an-original copy, but more of a re-creation or pastiche of the original. If you look at the face, this version is much more realistically sculpted, as compared to the very Ancient Greek style of the original (his style had a huge influence on what became known as Art Deco). A lot of the other details are quite different as well, including the base and that this one is not even wearing moccasins. There is a sticker on the underside of the plaster base with the manufacturer's name and the original price ($249). I did some research on the company. I found out that they make very high end and expensive reproductions of antique French and Italian furniture (think Louis XIV or Rococo style) and sculptures. I found a phone number for them, so I called and talked to the nice lady at the front desk. I inquired about my statue. It has not been in their catalog for some time and she wasn't familiar with it, but she did inform me that EVERY statue that was not carved out of marble by artisans in Europe was hand crafted of hot cast bronze. The coating had been applied to keep the bronze from deteriorating due to being handled in the stores.
Even though it's a copy, this is a nice one. I've seen some others that are VERY crude by comparison. It is easy to keep clean, and never needs to be waxed either! Pardon the pictures - my backdrop was not up to the task with a sculpture this size. I'll take better ones as soon as I fix it.
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| Indian With Pronghorn Antelope (Indian only), by Paul Manship, 1914, copy ca. 1990, front |
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| Indian With Pronghorn Antelope (Indian only), by Paul Manship, 1914, copy ca. 1990, right |
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| Indian With Pronghorn Antelope (Indian only), by Paul Manship, 1914, copy ca. 1990, face |
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| Indian With Pronghorn Antelope (Indian only), by Paul Manship, 1914, copy ca. 1990, back |
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| Indian With Pronghorn Antelope (Indian only), by Paul Manship, 1914, copy ca. 1990, left |
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