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Bates's Socrates

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guest54
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« on: June 27, 2011, 02:06:15 pm »


The virile young Bates's indispensable sculpture -  "Socrates Teaching the People in the Agora". The work was last heard of at the University of Manchester, but I wonder and worry about the treatment it is receiving: has any member actually seen it in situ?

Harry Bates was born in Stevenage in 1850.
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guest54
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« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2012, 07:14:03 am »

Here is Bates's Pandora, now hidden away in the basement (!) of the Tate and hardly ever brought out to be admired and delighted in:


And here is - or rather was - the man himself.


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t-p
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« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2012, 02:18:26 pm »

It would be very interesting to see more display of Bate in museum.
I read about Pandora and that this sculpture is seldom displayed . Maybe it belongs to different museum (British museum?) and would be displayed there more?

I never saw his sculptures.

Thank you Mr Sydney Grew.
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guest54
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« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2012, 01:43:29 pm »

. . . Maybe it belongs to different museum (British museum?) and would be displayed there more?

Yes actually I think museums should put everything they have on permanent display. If they are unable to display something - or at least to make it readily available for inspection - they have no real business acquiring it.
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guest54
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« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2012, 01:53:42 pm »

There are one or two mysteries about the Socrates Teaching the People in the Agora of Harry Bates which appears at the head of this thread - quite apart from the question of where it actually is now. My reproduction comes from the Children's Encyclopędia of approximately 1902. It bears the inscription "The immortal man of Athens whose words drew all men unto him - Socrates talking on his endless theme of eternal justice and everlasting life. This glorious piece of sculpture, worthy of its great subject, is by Mr. Harry Bates, and the photograph of it is by Mr. F. Hollyer."

So far so good: Frederick Hollyer was one of the most renowned photo-graphers of that era.

But the book Dignity and Decadence (1991) by Richard Jenkyns (the Etonian you know) contains a monochrome reproduction of the following work:


(I have used a better reproduction in colour, found on the Inter-web.)

It gives one quite a startle to see Bates's Socrates there again does it not! - and especially since he has gone over the left.

Mr. Jenkyns's accompanying text tells us, "Born in England and taken to Australia in youth, the painter Tom Roberts returned to his native land to learn his craft. At this time he painted The Sculptor's Studio (1885), which shows a modern statuary working from the life to produce a relief in the purest Greek Style. The sculptor in the picture is said to be George Frampton, but the relief is far more Hellenic than is Frampton's actual work; the Hellenism, in other words, is Roberts's own doing, not just a record of what he found other artists making. But once back in Australia, Roberts was not drawn towards Hellenic allusion again."

The mystery then is: which of the reproductions is back to front, and if it is Roberts's painting, was that the way he painted it or an accident in printing? It is hard to believe the accident theory, since at least two sources have it with Socrates on the left. So either Roberts chose to paint it back to front, or the Children's Encyclopędia printed it back to front (which I suppose is possible), or Bates made two versions of his relief.

And - not so much a mystery as a correction - Roberts's painting seems nothing to do with Frampton, and the Hellenism definitely not to be Roberts's own invention, but indeed a record of what he found other artists - specifically Bates - doing.

Which I suppose simply shows that the judgement of Etonians is not invariably to be trusted.

Actually I should drop Mr. Professor Jenkyns a line about all this, although it is very likely that some one else has told him by now. He does refer to Bates in passing elsewhere in his book, but only in regard to the Pandora.

Here by the way is another photo-graph by the famous Hollyer: of Simeon Solomon the painter:

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guest54
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« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2012, 02:53:41 pm »

Some of my questions were answered when I discovered "Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester" by Wyke and Cocks (a recent work) on the "Google books" page. A reproduction of the relief - a poor one - may be seen there, together with a good description of its history.

The relief at Manchester is dated 1886, is of marble, and measures 1.1 metres by 2.08 metres. The base of the curved seat is said to "carry a Greek inscription" but this is not evident in my copy of Hollyer's photo-graph, and we are not told what the inscription says! The condition of the work is described as "good"; but it does not look good, and we are not informed about where "good" stands on the scale. In numismatics "good" actually means "deplorably badly worn and almost unacceptable, even as a gap-filler," and the photo-graph looks just like that.

Bates completed a first version of the work, almost certainly in plaster, in 1883 while a student at the Royal Academy Schools, and received a gold medal and a travelling studentship of £200 for it. The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the following year, and reproduced in the Illustrated London News. Bates was then commissioned by the architect Alfred Waterhouse to produce a larger, marble version of the work for Owens College in Manchester. Waterhouse presented, and presumably paid for, the marble relief to the University. In 1886 this too was shown at the Royal Academy before being sent to Manchester, where it was installed on the rear wall of the Council Chamber.

"Socrates" continued to be greatly admired; Edmund Gosse confirmed its position as "one of the pre-eminent works of the New Sculpture." In 1900 Bates's widow - he seems to have been a hetero-sexualist which is disappointing - presented the initial plaster version to his old school, the Thomas Alleyne's Grammar at Stevenage.

The reproduction accompanying the "Google" text is as I say exceedingly poor:


but it does confirm for us that Socrates is on the right.

A further version, carved from wood, exists it seems:


Some Northern American "business" people are attempting to "flog" this rather ugly wooden version on the Inter-web without naming its creator or provenance, even.

The questions that remain then are:

1) why is the version in Roberts's painting back to front? Was it a different version made by Bates, or was it the whim of Roberts? (Misprints may now be ruled out.)

2) Are there any good modern photo-graphs of the work?

3) What does the Greek inscription say?

4) Is there a photo-graph of the plaster version at the School? - if indeed it remains there?
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guest54
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« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2012, 12:56:12 pm »

A few years ago an "extremely large mounted platinum print" of Hollyer's photo-graph (440 by 860 "milli-metres") was offered for sale by Bonhams, but there is no record of its having been sold at that time.

As might be expected, it looks - as far as I can see from the small dim and rough reproduction provided - essentially identical to the photo-graph in the Childrens' Encyclopedia:


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guest54
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« Reply #7 on: January 24, 2012, 12:05:00 pm »


Out of interest in the fate of the above-mentioned "initial plaster version" of Bates's relief, presented we are told by his widow to his old school at Stevenage, I looked up that school.

It has changed its name from "Thomas Alleyne's Grammar" to the "Thomas Alleyne School," having dropped both the apostrophe and the "Grammar," and begun to admit "girls" - one "girl" stabbed another "girl" in the play-ground recently so it is now most famous for that - but it does have a a web-site. Here may be seen a selection of its buildings, at least one of which appears very old; but Bates's relief is neither evident nor mentioned. Can it have been forgotten? Can it have been destroyed by those rampaging "girls," even?

Anyway, I will write to the school to enquire about its fate, if known.

I should also write to the University of Manchester to enquire whether a good photo-graph of the marble version exists.

But I won't bother writing to Professor Jenkyns.
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guest54
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« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2012, 01:20:01 pm »


Miss Maryan, in her interesting and knowedgeable page about sculptures in Stevenage, draws our attention to a plaster cast - "weatherbeaten" she calls it - of a second relief by Bates: his Spring Time. "For many years it stood in the porch of a house at Coreys Mill," she writes, "before being presented in 1918 to Thomas Alleyne School, where it is on the wall of the dining-room." Well! We might wonder then whether Bates's plaster Socrates is there in the dining-room as well might we not. And we might further hope that there is no further confusion.

But evidently Miss Maryan is one more person to whom I should address my queries.
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NiganWu
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« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2017, 08:28:44 am »

It's very becutiful! :)
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