Just inside Central Park (on the west side) is The Falconer.
Every time I walk by it, I always wondered how it came to end up in the middle of NYC (it's not like we have a whole lot of falcon clubs, you know?).
According to the Central Park website:
This bronze statue is the work of British sculptor George Blackall Simonds (1844-1929). Born in Reading, England, Simonds's family had a partnership in the prosperous brewery, Simonds and Courage. He attended Saint Andrew's College, and, demonstrating early promise as a sculptor, studied art in Dresden, Germany, and Brussels, Belgium, before residing for 12 years in Rome, Italy.
While in Italy, Simonds learned much about the tradition of lost-wax bronze casting. He later published a series of articles on this subject in a journal, in which he pushed for the use of lost-wax casting in Great Britain. Simonds's The Falconer statue, cast by Clemente Papi (1802-1875), a founder in Florence, Italy, weds several of his interests. The statue depicts a young falconer in Elizabethan garb, holding aloft a falcon poised for release. It is installed on a cylindrical granite pedestal perched on a natural rock outcropping south of the 72nd Street transverse road, and east of the park's West Drive.
Simonds himself was an avid falconer, and was later depicted with a falcon in an official portrait made of him as chairman of the family brewery by Sir Oswald Brimley. The original sculpture of The Falconer was created for Trieste, Italy, and was shown at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1875. It appears that George Kemp (1826-1893), a wealthy merchant born in Ireland, who later lived in New York City, admired the sculpture so much that he commissioned a full-scale replica for Central Park, where it was dedicated on May 31, 1875.
Isn't that interesting? All it took to over a hundred years ago was a wealthy man's love of a statue... and ever since The Falconer has been gazing out at millions of New Yorkers ever since!
Thanks for visiting- I hope you have a great day!
