Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980)
Greek Dancers (Second Version)
inscribed 'HARRIET W. FRISHMUTH copyright 1911' (on the base) and inscribed 'GORHAM CO. FOUNDERS / QIH' (on the base)
bronze with brown and verdigris patina, each
8 7/8 in. (22.5 cm.) high, each
Modeled and cast in 1911.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Private collection.
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2017.

Literature
Gorham Company, Bronze Division, Bronze Division Papers: Casting Records of Statuary and Small Bronzes Owned by Sculptors, Identification Assigned to Statuary and Bronzes, 1906-1930, New York, 1911, p. 158, no. QIH. (as Book Ends)
Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., The Woman Sculptor: Malvina Hoffman and Her Contemporaries, An Exhibition of Small Bronzes to Celebrate the Centennial of the Brearley School, exhibition catalogue, October 24-December 8, 1984, p. 37, no. 12, another example illustrated.
J. Conner, L.R. Lehmbeck, T. Tolles, F.L. Hohmann III, Captured Motion, The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: A Catalogue of Works, New York, 2006, pp. 222, 295, another example illustrated.

There are 10 known pairs of the second version of Greek Dancers bookends that were produced, all of which, including the present work, were cast by Gorham Manufacturing Company, Bronze Division. Another example of the second version of Greek Dancers can be found in the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Between 1910-12, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth actively set forth into designing and producing functional objets d'art, such as paperweights, ash trays, and bookends. Greek Dancers, which she modeled two versions of in 1910 and 1911, is one of three designs for bookends that Frishmuth created during this period alongside Pushing Men Bookends and Female Figure Bookends, both modeled in 1912. The elegantly decorative and functional qualities found in these works, such as in the second version of Greek Dancers, were in high demand during the early twentieth century and Frishmuth's close associations with her preferred foundry, Gorham made producing these works a commercially fruitful venture.