TitleDryad
Artist
Paul Manship
(1885 - 1966)
Date1913
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 12 5/8 × 7 × 4 in.
Other (Base): 4 1/4 × 5 × 4 in.
SignedSigned under figure's left side, incised: "PAUL MANSHIP".
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, May 7, 1917
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number76-S
Label TextManship created the central figure group of "Centaur and Dryad" in Rome in 1912, his final year at the American Academy, and completed the pedestal after his return to New York late that year. It was perhaps the most admired of the works shown at the Architectural League shortly after his return. Its purchase by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was a singular accomplishment for so young an artist. Another cast of the work shown at the Academy's winter Exhibition late in 1913, further contributed to its becoming one of Manship's most well-known early works. The Academy's piece is both a marked reduction in scale from the full work, which is just under two and a half feet in height, and an excerpted detail from it, representing the dryad alone. Although her molesting companion's right hand is seen caressing her breast, his figure, most of the swirling drapery which is so much a part of the decorative scheme of the full piece, and the elaborated pedestal are eliminated. The dryad's legs and right arm are also truncated in the Academy's version.
Classical allusions, in form as well as content, predominate in both the original and this reduced version. However, Manship did not ignore the erotic implications of the subject. Edwin Murtha reported that the sensuality of the dryad herself was responsible for the Postmaster of New York's refusal to allow a magazine carrying illustrations of the "Centaur and Dryad" and others of Manship's early works to be sent through the mails. At least five casts of the full sculpture were made and are now in public collections, casts of the single figure appear to be rarer and were evidently not exhibited by Manship.
