Summer 2017

Always Great Americana & Folk Art at PeggyMcClard.com Peggy McClard Americana & Folk Art By Appointment & On the Internet Houston, Texas (713) 880-2572 Peggy@PeggyMcClard.com Faces of Folk Art Summer 50 www.afamag.com |  www.incollect.com Discoveries Delphi Charioteer Probably Greece, ca. 1950 Bronze, H. 70 in. Provenance: Ex-collection Felix de Weldon (1907–2003), the celebrated American sculptor famous for the Iwo Jima memorial (1954). Courtesy Barbara Israel Garden Antiques, Katonah, NY. This statue is an exceptional bronze replica of the ancient Greek master- piece, the Delphi Charioteer, a standing chariot driver, with reins in hand and characteristic amber eyes. The original work in the Delphi Archaeological Museum dates to ca. 474 BC; this statue is likely of Greek production. Widely admired while on display at the 2017 Winter Antiques Show in New York, this Charioteer was particularly revered by two accom- plished archaeological scholars who marveled at its likeness to the original. We had heard that Felix de Weldon had reputedly been allowed to make a copy of the original in exchange for doing a favor for the Greek government. What we didn’t know was that the replica would likely have been made from a nineteenth-century mold and that this may be the only one in existence with that distinction. The scholars had never seen another matching the exact size of the original!