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Auction: 21124 - Spink Numismatic e-Circular 9: British and World Coins & Commemorative Medals
Lot: 6201

Royal Academy of Arts, AR Prize Medals for Sculpture, awarded to Edith Bateson (2), by W. Wyon, VICTORIA D:G: BRITANNIARUM REGINA MDCCCXXXVII., diademed bust left, rev. THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS INSTITUTED MDCCLXVIII, sculpture of torse, STUDY below, on edge EDITH BATESON, FOR THE BEST [...] OF A STATUE OR GROUP 10. DEC. 1891; the second, on edge EDITH BATESON FOR A M[...] OF A BUST FROM THE LIFE DEC. 10. 1892., both with suspension loop and ribband, accompanied by letter from the Royal Academy of Arts dated 1975

Edith Bateson (1867-1938), Sculptor and Painter. Born in Cambridge in 1867, Bateson entered the Royal Academy Schools on 7th Decemeber 1888 aged twenty one. She studied under the French sculptor Édouard Lantéri. During her time at the Academy she was awarded three silver medals. In 1891 and 1892 she was awarded a medal for a bust from life (open only to female students). The other medal she recieved was for a model of a statue or group.

Bateson was one of a group of women artists encouraged to take up sculpture at this time due to the development of modelling in clay and then casting in bronze. Previously sculpture had been thought too physically demanding for women. According to Susan Beattie, 'the dramatic rise of women sculptors to promience in the 1890s was directly related to the changing image of the art. The Cult, not only of the statuette, but of modelling as the sculptors most direct means of self-expression, and the consequent revolution in the bronze founding industry , had deeply undermined the principal argument against women's involvement in sculpture, their inability to cope with the sheer physical effort required.' (Beattie, 195).

Bateson exhibited works at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition between 1891-97, the International Society of Sculptors between 1914-22, the Walker Gallery, the Paris Salon during the 1890s and at various other London and provisonal galleries during her lieftime.


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