JOHN DUNCAN FERGUSSON R.B.A. (SCOTTISH 1874-1961)
GOAT, 1921 (CAST 1991)
Bronze
10cm (4in) high
Acquired from the Artist's widow, Margaret Morris and thence by descent to the present owner
This sculpture was inspired by a distinctive breed of goat owned by Fergusson and Morris’s patron, the businessman George Davison. Morris’s Summer School of 1919 was held at his home, Wern Fawr, in Harlech, north Wales and she recalled: ‘There were mountain goats, used to living and breeding among rocky crags…What fascinated Fergus [sic] was the way their hair grew…it was long but stood out in frills round their legs, like trousers. Fergus made endless sketches of them….[and]…when back in London he got a lump of plasticine and…carved it into a goat he called Trousers and got it cast in brass.’ ((Margaret Morris, The Art of J. D. Fergusson: A Biased Biography, Blackie, Glasgow, 1974)