Peter Pan

The present charming statuette of Peter Pan, is a reduction after the life-size bronze exhibited by Frampton at the Royal Academy in 1911 and erected by an anonymous donor in Kensington Gardens the following year. The statue stands at the spot where, as recounted in Barrie's Little White Bird, Peter Pan lands for his nightly visits to the Gardens and where he pipes to the spirits of the children that have played there. Its popular appeal led Frampton to produce a bronze reduction of the main figure as an independent statue and 19 in. high reductions are known dated 1913, 1916 and 1925. The present version places Pan atop an alabaster pedestal fronted by a plaque recalling the bronze rock upon which the original stands, which is inhabited by a host of fairies, rabbits and other woodland creatures. The fine bronze detailing of the present statuette indicates foundry skill consistent with the period of the original, but the angular alabaster pedestal suggests the Art Deco style and might date this cast to the late 1920s or 1930s.