Nymph Drinking From a Shell

Edward Francis McCartan (Aug. 16, 1879 – Sep. 20, 1947)

Bronze sculpture 61″, titled: Nymph Drinking From a Shell. The master plaster was produced in 1915. There are several castings of this bronze known. These include ours, one in a private art collection, one at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens, Norfolk, VA, and one at the Reading Public Museum in Reading, PA. It is certainly possible that more exist, but none have been offered for sale in the past few decades for which there are records.

These beautiful pieces were produced as fountain works and have been subject to water related corrosion, verdigris, etc. We have kept ours with the original patina from its manufacture, and with verdigris and related environmental patina. A failed lacquer coating was removed non-abrasively and the piece has been coated with museum wax for bronze.

Life-sized McCartan bronzes are scarce and accordingly, past sales are very rare. We know of two sales that have occurred. May 24, 2000, a unique life-size version of Diana with Hound was sold at Sotheby’s for $775,750. It had been commissioned for a Greenwich, Connecticut estate in 1928. A second sale of a life size McCartan was made by the Conner Rosenkranz gallery in New York. That piece, Isoult, was purchased by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C on October 25, 2004. It is also a unique bronze commissioned by Julius Spencer Morgan in 1926, Glen cove, New York. The sale would likely have equaled or exceeded the Sotheby’s sale from four years earlier.

A slightly different and reduced-size version of Nymph Drinking From a Shell was also created by Edward McCartan. This 28″ height version has past sales including Sotheby’s October 2, 2015, for $27,500.

We believe that our bronze example is the only life-sized McCartan currently available in the world.