Abastenia St. Leger Eberle (1878-1942)


Roller Skater (Girl Skating) inscribed and dated ''06 / A St L Eberle' and stamped 'B. Zoppo. / Foundry. N.Y.' (along the base)bronze with brown patina13in highModeled in 1906.
|Provenance(possibly) Spreckles Sugar Company, California.Private collection, California, (possibly) acquired from the above.By descent to the present owner from the above.LiteratureAbastenia St. Leger Eberle: Sculptor (1878-1942), Des Moines, Iowa, 1980, n.p., no. 8, another example illustrated.J. Conner and J. Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio Works, 1893-1939, Austin, Texas, 1989, pp. 3, 28-29, 191, another example illustrated (as Roller Skating (also Roller Skater)).T. Tolles, ed., American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol II, New York, 2001, pp. 627-29, another example illustrated (as Girl Skating).The present work is a common subject among Abastenia St. Leger Eberle's representations of the city's poor. Most frequently depicting children, these examples were produced in bronze, generally standing a foot in height. (T. Tolles, ed., American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol II, New York, 2001, p. 629) Roller Skater is a significant model as it is the first image of this subject, produced by the artist in 1906. A poignant example of the underprivileged class the artist witnessed living in New York, she once discussed her subjects to the Washington Post in 1916, "The children of the East Side play without restraint; their griefs and their joys are expressed with absolute abandon. . . . [T]heir natural emotions are not retrained by the pretty curtseys taught by governesses. . . . They laugh loudly. They shout. They race on roller skates and dance unrestrainedly. I can get at the human quality in these children. They are real--real as they can be. They express life." (ibid) According to the artist, there were approximately six or eight casts of Roller Skater produced by 1933. Other examples of this bronze can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island; and Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa.