Meditation (Maryon)
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| Meditation | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Edith Maryon |
| Year | 1910 |
| Medium | Bronze, plaster, or gilt plaster, depending on version |
| Dimensions | 8 cm (3 in) tall |
Meditation is a 1910 sculpture by the English artist Edith Maryon. The sculpture was created in several media, including bronze, plaster, and gilt plaster. It is 8 centimetres (3 inches) tall, and depicts a naked infant clutching its foot with one hand, while sucking on the thumb of its other.
The sculpture is signed and dated "E Maryon 10", for Edith Maryon 1910. Maryon exhibited it that year at the Fortieth Autumn Exhibition of Modern Art at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. She created at least three versions of the piece. One, in gilt plaster, was purchased by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme and displayed at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. A second, in plaster, was in 1993 attributed to a private collection. A third, in bronze, was auctioned in 2019. The sculpture is one of the few works by Maryon known to survive in private ownership.
Edith Maryon was born in London on 9 February 1872.[1][2] She was educated there and in Geneva, then studied art, including at the Royal College of Art.[3] Between 1899 and 1912, when Maryon was approximately 27 to 40 years old and living in London, she exhibited numerous works, particularly at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Walker Art Gallery.[4] These works, according to her biographer Rex Raab, tended to fall into five categories: first, the world of external physical being; second, references to the elemental world; third, motifs reflecting the human soul; fourth, allegorical works representing spiritual forces and beings; and fifth, a combination of emotional and spiritual aspects.[5] Maryon exhibited little if at all after 1912.[6]
Maryon was interested in the esoteric at least as early as 1909, and in 1912 travelled to Germany to meet the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner for the first time.[7][8][9] In 1914 she travelled to Dornach—the place where Steiner had resolved to centre the anthroposophical movement and build the Goetheanum as its central structure.[10][11] Over the next decade, until her death in 1924, Maryon rarely left Dornach.[12][13] She became a close collaborator of Steiner; among other contributions while there, she was heavily involved in creating both the monumental sculpture The Representative of Humanity, and the eurythmy figures depicting an anthroposophical form of dance.[14]
Description
Meditation is 8 cm tall.[15][16] The sculpture exists in at least three media: bronze,[15][16] plaster,[17] and gilt plaster.[18] The sculpture includes a round base, upon which a small child sits.[15][16] With its left hand, the child clutches its left foot.[15][16] The right hand is raised to the child's mouth, where it sucks on its thumb.[15][16] The base is signed and dated "E Maryon 10", for Edith Maryon 1910.[15][16]
The sculpture shares similarities with a sculpture that Maryon created in 1903, "Listen!" Evelyn and Gloria, children of Sir Rennell and Lady Rodd.[17] That sculpture was made of marble, exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1903 and 1904,[19][20] and at the Thirty-fourth Autumn Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery from 1904 to 1905.[21] In his 1993 biography of Maryon, Raab describes Meditation as a study for the earlier piece.[17]
Provenance
Maryon exhibited a bronze version of Meditation at the Fortieth Autumn Exhibition of Modern Art at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool from 19 September 1910 to 7 January 1911.[22] The work was priced at 10s 10d (equivalent to £60 in 2024), although it did not sell during the exhibition.[22] Maryon also displayed four other works at the exhibition: Fairy Luck, The Dance of Anitra, To the Witches' Revels, and Miss Ruth Franklin.[23]
At least three examples of Meditation were created, one in each known medium. A version in gilt plaster was purchased by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme and displayed at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.[18] By 1999, however, it was no longer part of the collection.[18] A second version, in plaster, was pictured in Raab's 1993 biography of Maryon, attributed to a private collection.[24] A third version, in bronze, was auctioned by East Bristol Auctions in February 2019.[15][16][note 1] Meditation, along with The Dance of Anitra and To the Witches' Revels, is one of the only known works by Maryon known to survive in private hands.[27]
