Henry Moore

Marina & Willy Staehelin-Peyer, Switzerland (sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 13, 1997, lot 164)

Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Alan Bowness, ed., Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, 1955-1964, London, 1965, vol. 3, no. 503, illustrations of another cast pls. 142-143

John Hedgecoe, Henry Moore, New York, 1968, illustration of another cast p. 404

Robert Melville, Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1970, nos. 654-655, illustrations of another cast

David Mitchinson, ed., Henry Moore Sculpture (with comments by the artist), London, 1981, nos. 369-371, illustrations of the larger version pp. 174-175

Please contact the Impressionist and Modern Art Department at (212) 606-7360 for the condition report for this lot.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Large Torso: Arch combines Moore's fascination with the nature forms of bones and his love for ancient monuments and in particular his lifelong admiration for Stonehenge. 

Since his childhood Moore had been fascinated by the ancient ruin and remembered his visit in the early 1920s to the site of the primeval monoliths in Salisbury as follows: "As it was a clear evening I got to Stonehenge and saw it by moonlight. I was alone and tremendously impressed. (Moonlight, as you know, enlarges everything, and the mysterious depths and distances made it seem enormous). I went again the next morning, it was still very impressive, but that first moonlight visit remained for years my idea of Stonehenge" (quoted in David Sylvester, ed., Henry Moore Sculpture and Drawings, 1921-48, 1957, p. 3). For decades the simple instrumentality of the arch form, reminiscent of pre-historic sculpture, gestated in Moore's oeuvre of his passion for Stonehenge. Furthermore, in 1972-73, Moore executed a series of lithographs on the theme of Stonehenge.

Roger Berthoud, discussing the fact that Arch was one of the major works that Moore would show in his retrospective at Forte di Belvedere, Florence in 1972, considered that: "Arch itself, for example, looks at its best (as in travertine version in Hyde Park, London) when framing sky and nature, like a fragment of the Parthenon. For the greatest show of his life, now imminent, he had a fibre-glass version made of the great bone-like structure" (Roger Berthoud, The Life of Henry Moore, London, 1987, p. 353).

Alan Bowness elaborated on the inspiration behind Arch: "One can appreciate how the Large Torso: Arch (LH 503, 503b) can be seen to echo the arched formation of Stonehenge trillionths. In its original conception it dates back to 1962, a time when Moore began to revisit Stonehenge because his daughter was at a nearby boarding school. Yet even in the monumental version of his sculpture, made in 1969 and twenty feet high, which Moore calls simple Arch (LH 503b), the body reference is obvious. But as he walks through it, the spectator relates to the Arch in a rather unusal way: this is sculpture large enough to inhabit" (A. Bowness, ed., op. cit., London, 1965, vol. 3, p. 14).

According to the Henry Moore Foundation, Large Torso: Arch was executed in 1962-63 and cast in an edition of seven plus one artist's proof. Another cast of this work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.