Bronze
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Contemporary Art Society
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sir-jacob-epstein-1061" aria-label="More by Sir Jacob Epstein" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Sir Jacob Epstein</a>
Euphemia Lamb
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917
actions: postures and motions
adults
body
Forrest, Nina Euphemia
head / face
individuals: female
Lamb, Nina Euphemia
looking down
named individuals
people
portraits
woman
<p>The sitter was Nina Forrest, an artist's model and the wife of the painter Henry Lamb. Lamb called her Euphemia because she looked like the female in the Italian Renaiassance artist Andrea Mantegna's painting of St Euphemia. Epstein and Lamb were good friends and Nina sat twice for Epstein. Epstein has kept to the format of early Renaissance portrait busts here, probably in order to suggest a link with the Mantegna painting.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
sculpture bronze
1 July 2006 – 30 June 2009
2009-06-30
30 October 2006 – 30 June 2009
2009-06-30
2006-10-30
Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK)
http://www.vam.ac.uk
2006-07-01
Victoria & Albert Museum
Loan-out
31 January 2012 – 12 August 2012
2012-08-12
31 January 2012 – 12 August 2012
2012-08-12
2012-01-31
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-01-31
Migrations
Exhibition
Euphemia Lamb
object: 375 × 400 × 203 mm, 12 kg
Presented by the <a href="/search?gid=999999975" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Contemporary Art Society</a> 1917
<p>The sitter was Nina Forrest, an artist's model  and the wife of the painter Henry Lamb. Lamb called her Euphemia because she looked like  the female in the Italian Renaiassance artist Andrea Mantegna's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> of St Euphemia. Epstein and Lamb were good friends and Nina  sat twice for Epstein. Epstein has kept to the format of early <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/renaissance" title="Glossary definition for 'Renaissance'"><span>Renaissance</span></a> <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> busts here, probably in order to suggest a link with the Mantegna painting.</p>
Display caption
2004-08-27T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/epstein-euphemia-lamb-n03187" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03187</span></a> EUPHEMIA LAMB 1908
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘Epstein’ on back of right shoulder and founder's stamp ‘cire perdue A.A. Hébrard’.
<br/>Bronze, 14 3/4×15 3/4×8 (37×40×20).
<br/>Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Purchased by the C.A.S. from the artist 1913.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> C.A.S., <i>First Public Exhibition in London</i>, Goupil Gallery, April 1913 (161), as ‘Bust of Mrs Lamb’; Twenty-One Gallery, December 1913–January 1914 (5) [2nd ed.], as ‘Euphemia’, bust, bronze, 1908; Arts Council, Tate Gallery, September–November 1952 (2, detail repr. in illustrated supplement, pl.3); Edinburgh Festival, August–September 1961 (25, plaster repr. pl.3); Arts Council, Tate Gallery, November–December 1961 (6, detail repr. pl.3).
<br/><i>Lit:</i> Epstein, 1940, p.56; <i>ibid.</i>, 1955, p.42; Buckle, 1963, pp.52–4, 88, 424, plaster repr. pl.74.
<br/><i>Repr:</i> Van Dieren, 1920, pl.18 (the cast formerly in the Quinn Collection); Black, 1942, pl.83.</p>
<p>The artist wrote (<i>loc. cit</i>) that after completing the Strand <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sculpture" title="Glossary definition for 'Sculpture'"><span>sculptures</span></a> he had the desire to train himself in a more intensive method of working: ‘I began a series of studies from the model, which were as exact as I could make them. I worked with great care, and followed the forms of the model by quarter inches ... not letting up on any detail of construction of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/plane" title="Glossary definition for 'Plane'"><span>plane</span></a>; but always keeping the final <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/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> in view. These studies included the various works I made from Nan ... and also studies of Euphemia Lamb.... I look upon this period as still formative. Also at this time I did a bust of Lady Gregory and Mrs Ambrose McEvoy, and several busts of my wife.’</p>
<p>The model, Nina Euphemia Forrest, was the first wife of the painter Henry Lamb, whom she married in 1906; in 1935 she married Edward Grove (see A. John, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/john-edward-grove-t00138" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T00138</span></a>); they were divorced in 1943 and she died in 1956. Lamb called her ‘Euphemia’ because she reminded him of the fair-haired St Euphemia of Mantegna. She posed for a number of artists, including John and her husband; the Tate Gallery also owns a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> of her by McEvoy, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mcevoy-euphemia-n04447" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04447</span></a>, dating from 1909.</p>
<p>This is almost certainly the first of four studies which Epstein made of her and was dated 1908 in the second edition of the Twenty-One Gallery exhibition catalogue 1913 (see above). The sculptor confirmed that this was the first in a letter from Lady Epstein to the compiler, 22 September 1956. In both style and conception it is closely related to the marble bust of Mrs Chadburn and the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/metal" title="Glossary definition for 'Metal'"><span>bronze</span></a> bust of Mrs Mary McEvoy (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/epstein-mrs-mary-mcevoy-n06139" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06139</span></a>) variously dated as 1909 (Buckle, 1963, p.424) and 1910 (Haskell, 1931, p.167), although the absence of any decisive stylistic development between the years 1908 and 1910 makes it difficult to date works with accuracy. Buckle (<i>op. cit.</i>, p.424) assigns <span>N03187</span> to 1911, but documentary and stylistic evidence seem to weigh against this later date.</p>
<p>Euphemia also posed about 1910 for a garden figure in marble 53 in. high commissioned by Lady Ottoline Morrell. Either this, or more likely, the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/plaster-of-paris" title="Glossary definition for 'Plaster of Paris'"><span>plaster</span></a> sketch for it (Haskell, 1931, p.168; repr. Buckle, <i>op. cit.</i>, pl.72) was shown at the National Portrait Society, January–February 1911 (60), as ‘Euphemia’ (<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/medium" title="Glossary definition for 'Medium'"><span>medium</span></a> unspecified), and a description of the work appears in a review published in <i>The Athenaeum</i>, 28 January 1911, p.105, in which the writer criticizes the anatomical distortion of the legs but gives no indication of the medium. The marble sculpture belonged to Mrs Arthur Clifton in 1963 (repr. Buckle, <i>op. cit.</i>, pl.73), and a bronze <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> of the torso, 44 in. high and made in 1912, was sold at Christie's, 22 June 1962 (94, repr.), as ‘Fountain Figure’. A second bust, which shows Euphemia looking up (repr. Buckle, <i>op. cit.</i>, pl.74), is related to the garden sculpture and should probably be dated <i>c.</i> 1910–11.</p>
<p>Another cast of <span>N03187</span>, unsigned and possibly earlier than that belonging to the Tate Gallery, was presented by Mrs Solomons to the National Museum of Israel, Jerusalem, 1956. Edward Grove wrote (28 October 1957): ‘Epstein says it is not really a portrait, that he only used Euphemia to work from.’</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
2004-10-05T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults body Forrest, Nina Euphemia head / face individuals: female Lamb, Nina Euphemia looking down named individuals people portraits woman