Bronze
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sir-alfred-gilbert-208" aria-label="More by Sir Alfred Gilbert" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Sir Alfred Gilbert</a>
Icarus
Bequeathed by Frederick Harrison 1936
adults
animals: features
classical myths: gods and heroes
clothing and personal items
helmet
Icarus
male
man
nudes
objects
people
religion and belief
wing
<p>Icarus and his father Daedulus escaped from prison from the Greek island of Crete by using pairs of wings which they made from feathers and wax. Icarus, however, flew too near to the sun, the wax melted and he fell into the sea and drowned. Gilbert stated that he chose the theme because, ‘It flashed across me that I was very ambitious: why not Icarus with his desire for flight?’ The subject represented the risk of his own ambition. The vibrant surface and themes of death and the recklessness of youth, lend Gilbert’s nude a dimension of sensual eroticism.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2010</em></p>
sculpture bronze
28 April 2003 – 18 April 2004
2004-04-18
28 April 2003 – 18 April 2004
2004-04-18
2003-04-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-04-28
Decadence
Collection based display
17 May 2004 – 8 September 2004
2004-09-08
17 May 2004
2004-05-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-05-17
The Boy
Collection based display
31 March 2006 – 31 October 2006
2006-10-31
31 March 2006 – 31 October 2006
2006-10-31
2006-03-31
Burghley House (Stamford, UK)
2006-03-31
2006 Season
Loan-out
20 March 2009 – 17 October 2010
2010-10-17
20 March 2009 – 17 October 2010
2010-10-17
2009-03-20
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-03-20
New Sculpture
Collection based display
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
2012-11-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-05
Gallery 9
Collection based display
5 November 2016 – 31 August 2025
2025-08-31
5 November 2016 – 5 February 2017
2017-02-05
2016-11-05
Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au
18 March 2017 – 16 July 2017
2017-07-16
2017-03-18
Auckland Art Gallery (Auckland, New Zealand)
11 August 2017 – 4 February 2018
2018-02-04
2017-08-11
Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea)
24 March 2018 – 24 June 2018
2018-06-24
2018-03-24
Yokohama Museum of Art (Yokohama, Japan)
2016-11-05
Nude: art from the Tate collection
Tate partnerships & programmes
8 May 2023 – 5 May 2025
2025-05-05
31 October 2022
2022-10-31
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-05-08
Gallery 6
Collection based display
Icarus
object with integral stone base: H 630 x W 240 x D 190 mm 
object without stone base: H 495 x W 240 x D190 mm



Bequeathed by Frederick Harrison 1936
<p>Icarus and his father Daedulus escaped from prison from the Greek island of Crete by using pairs of wings which they made from feathers and wax. Icarus, however, flew too near to the sun, the wax melted and he fell into the sea and drowned. Gilbert stated that he chose the theme because, ‘It flashed across me that I was very ambitious: why not Icarus with his desire for flight?’ The subject represented the risk of his own ambition. The vibrant surface and themes of death and the recklessness of youth, lend Gilbert’s nude a dimension of sensual eroticism. 
<br/></p>

Display caption
2010-02-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N04827</b> ICARUS 1882–4
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘AG’ in circle on back, near base.
<br/>Bronze, 19 1/2×8 1/4×6 1/4 (49·5×21×16), on dark green marble base, 5 1/4×6 1/2×6 1/2 (13·5×16×16).
<br/>Bequeathed by Frederick Harrison 1936.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Frederick Harrison, died 1926.
<br/><i>Lit:</i> Monkhouse in <i>Magazine of Art</i>, 1889, pp.37–40; <i>Gazette des Beaux-Arts</i>, II, 1889, p.404, repr. p.395; Hatton, 1903, p.10; McAllister, 1929, pp.4, 62–6, 70, repr.; Bury, 1952, pp.41–2, 82, repr. pl.8.</p>
<p>A reduced version of the original figure (40 in. high) commissioned by Sir Frederic Leighton when he first met Gilbert in Perugia, probably in 1882. The subject was left to the artist, who spent two years on the figure and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/cast" title="Glossary definition for 'Cast'"><span>cast</span></a> it himself in Rome by the <i>cire-perdue</i> process. He gave the following account of the symbolism (Hatton, 1903.): ‘Icarus, prepared to fly, sees at his feet before throwing himself from the rock, a bird with its natural means of flight strangled by a crawling thing, a snake! - a presage of our life’. On the strength of this work, which was exhibited at the R.A. in 1884 (1855), Gilbert was elected an A.R.A. It is now in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, where there is also a wax model for the head of a reduced version, 2 3/4 in. high. This last came from the artist's own collection, which indicates that Gilbert himself designed a figure on this scale. In fact, this probably was the version exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition, 1889. Another cast on the same scale was exhibited at the Fine Art Society, 1935.</p>
<p>See <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gilbert-comedy-and-tragedy-sic-vita-n04829" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04829</span></a> for a connexion between the artist and the donor of <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gilbert-icarus-n04827" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04827</span></a>-<span>N04829</span>, Frederick Harrison.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, I
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-06T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults animals: features classical myths: gods and heroes clothing and personal items helmet Icarus male man nudes objects people religion and belief wing