Eli Harvey
1860-1957
Elk, 1909
bronze
inscribed: Eli·Harvey·Sc 1909·
inscribed: Copyright·1909·by· Eli·Harvey
stamped: HENRI.ROUARD FONDEUR-PARIS
stamped: MADE IN FRANCE

modeled in 1909
31 1/8 x 22 x 11 1/2 in.

Provenance:
From a Private Collection

Eli Harvey was brought up on a Quaker settlement in Ogden, Ohio and from an early age gained experience drawing, painting, and sculpting animals at the Cincinnati Academy of Art under Thomas S. Noble and Louis T. Rebiso before traveling to Paris to study at the Academies Julian and Delecluse. Although well known today for his sculptures, Harvey had an early interest in painting and drawing, exhibiting a pastel, Orpheus Charming the Animals, at the Paris Province Exhibition in 1900 where it won a gold medal. In the 1890s Harvey began to shift his focus to sculpture when he began to study with animalier Emmanuel Frémiet who encouraged him to study the wild animals at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. His animal bronzes garnered international praise and became the artist's best known works and most sought after subjects. Harvey exhibited some of his animal studies at the end of the nineteenth century at the Paris Salons and they were awarded bronze medals at several American exhibitions. Many are now in the collections of national institutions including the Denver Art Museum, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The present bronze is a reduction of the monumental figure of an elk that the Order of the Elks commissioned from Harvey in 1907. As the symbol of the Elks Club, Harvey’s Elk became popular and the artist authorized a number of founders to reproduce editions of his Elk in four sizes: the life-size original; a 32 inch reduction, of which the present bronze is an example; a 17 inch model; as well as a small bronze measuring only 6 inches high.

The bronze sculpture appears to be in very good condition.