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Vegetable Woman: M.7-1996

Object information

Current Location: In storage

Titles

Vegetable Woman

Maker(s)

Sculptor: Hardy, Bernhard Caspar

Entities

Categories

Description

Vegetable Woman. Wax, coloured flesh pink, dark pink, pale mauve, pale blue, pale yellow, green and brown. The woman is shown three-quarter length, holding up in front of her the ends of her pinafore, in which is a cabbage, an onion (?) and originally other vegetables. Her head is turned to the viewer's left. She wears a straw hat, held on by a pink ribbon to which two roses are attached; a pale yellow bodice and pale mauve skirt, with a pale blue apron. The model rests on a D-shaped base covered in dark green ribbed silk and the background is buff ribbed silk. In gilt-metal rococo scrolled frame with three scroll feet, glass half dome, and hinged door at the back.
A pair with M.8-1996.

Notes

History note: Sotheby's, 31st July 1958, lot 135

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Edward Joseph Pyke

Place(s) associated

  • Cologne ⪼ Germany

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1996) by Pyke, Edward Joseph

Dating

18th Century, Late
Circa 1775 CE - 1800 CE

People, subjects and objects depicted

Components of the work

Figure composed of wax ( coloured)
Frame composed of gilt-metal glass Height 26.9 cm Width 20.5 cm

Inscription or legends present

Inscription present: giving date of Sotheby & Co., sale of Thursday, July 31, 1958 and following day

  • Method of creation: Printed in black
  • Type: Label

Inscription present: description of lot

  • Text: 135 A GOOD PAIR OF WAX HALF-LENGTH FIGURES by Bernhard Caspar Hardy, both modelled in almost full relief, one of the 'Vegetable Woman', who wears a yellow hat and holds in her blue apron cabbages and other vegetables, the other of a 'Peasant Woman and Child'. the woman wearing a turquoise scarf on her head and bottle-green dress, supporting the naturalistically modelled baby in her arms, both set against lime green cloth backgrounds and contained in ormolu cases with domed glass fronts, 10 1/2 in Bernhard Caspar Hardy (1726-1819), was perhaps the most notable of all 18th Century wax modellers on the Continent. G. Bernhard Hughes illustrates another example of the 'Vegetable Woman' in 'An Artist in Wax', Country Life, October 12th, 1951. For other examples of Hardy's work see also D.R. Riley, Portrait Waxes, plates 15 and 16.
  • Method of creation: Printed in black
  • Type: Label

References and bibliographic entries

Identification numbers

Accession number: M.7-1996
Primary reference Number: 30470
Stable URI

Audit data

Created: Saturday 6 August 2011 Updated: Tuesday 21 March 2023 Last processed: Friday 8 December 2023

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Applied Arts

Citation for print

This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Vegetable Woman" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/30470 Accessed: 2024-12-03 18:09:06

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/30470 |title=Vegetable Woman |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-03 18:09:06|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

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https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-30470

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