Bronze
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<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>
Broken Shrine
Presented by Maurice Yorke 1938
sculpture bronze
The Broken Shrine
object: 352 × 200 × 190 mm
Presented by Maurice Yorke 1938
<p><b>N04977</b> THE BROKEN SHRINE <i>c.</i> 1900 (?)
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘The Broken Shrine, Alfred Gilbert. Six copies were made, this is the 3rd.’ on back.
<br/>Bronze, 14×8×7 (36×20×18), on green marble base, 3×10×10 1/4 (7·5×25·5×26).
<br/>Presented by Maurice Yorke 1938.
<br/><i>Lit:</i> <i>Art Journal</i>, 1901, p.253, the plaster repr.; Bury, 1952, p.75.</p>
<p>An anonymous writer in the <i>Art Journal</i> describes the sketch as ‘a thing wrought in an hour or two, probably without thought of exhibition, without other aim than to express an idea, a mood of the moment’. He goes on to interpret the theme of a woman seated with two infants in her lap as follows: ‘The figure of the Virgin above has been despoiled, hence the weary, half sorrowful attitude of the wayfarer whose arms enfold sleeping babes. The shrine of divine womanhood is shattered.’</p>
<p>At the 9th Exhibition of the Surrey Art Circle (of which Gilbert was President) at the Clifford Gallery, June 1901, was exhibited ‘Sketch - The Broken Shrine’ (122). It is not known whether this was 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> model or 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/m/metal" title="Glossary definition for 'Metal'"><span>bronze</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/c/cast" title="Glossary definition for 'Cast'"><span>cast</span></a> and this work may have been made some years earlier, at about the same time as <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gilbert-charity-t00167" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T00167</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gilbert-mourning-angel-t00168" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T00168</span></a>.</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
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