Henry Moore O.M., C.H. (British, 1898-1986)


Seated Mother and Child: Thin signed and numbered 'Moore/4/9' (on the base)bronze with a brown patina24.2 cm. (9 1/2 in.) high (including the base)Conceived in 1980
|ProvenanceWith Fisher Fine Art, London, where acquired by the parents of the previous ownerThence by descentTheir sale; Sotheby's, 10 December 2008, lot 81, where acquired by the present ownersPrivate Collection, U.K.LiteratureAlan Bowness (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Sculpture, Volume 6, Lund Humphries, London, 1988, p.38, cat.no.804 (ill.b&w, another cast)John Hedgecoe, A Monumental Vision, The Sculpture of Henry Moore, Collins & Brown, London, 1998, p.244-245, cat.no.680 (col.ill., another cast)Alongside the reclining figure, the theme of mother and child would occupy Moore throughout his career. Speaking on the subject, he commented that 'from very early on I had an obsession with the mother and child theme – it has been a universal theme from the beginning of time and some of the earliest sculptures we've found from the Neolithic Age are of a mother and child. I discovered, when drawing, I could turn every little scribble, blot or smudge into a mother and child' (Henry Moore and John Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, My Ideas, Inspiration and Life as an Artist, Ebury Press, London, 1986, p.155). The emergence of this crucial theme can be dated back to his first term at the Royal College of Art in the autumn of 1921 when he drew Woman Playing with Her Child on a small notebook sheet. This was followed in 1922 with his first sculpture of the subject, Mother and Child (Private Collection), carved in Portland stone and bearing a close resemblance to an Aztec carving of a seated man in the British Museum. Seated Mother and Child: Thin dates to 1980 and follows the birth of his first grandchild in 1977. The arrival of the baby invigorated the artist and there is a renewed sense of power and intimacy with regard to the theme. Moore has reduced the forms in the present work and also, as the title would suggest, condensed the depth somewhat. A tremendous sense of empathy is created as the mother holds the child up close, her hands and arms both wrapped around to protect the infant. Three years after this work was conceived, Moore was commissioned by Dr Alan Webster, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral to produce the celebrated seven foot tall Mother and Child: Hood in travertine marble.