End of the Day, 1915


Originally modeled in 1915, Farnham exhibited this work at the National Academy of Design in 1915 and the following year at the Art Institute of Chicago. The work was listed as being of colored plaster. If so, this work could be the one passed down through her family, which ,interestingly, depicts the figure draped in a flowing cloth. By 1922, Farnham's friend, Irene Castle, would commission her to enlarge the work in marble for her husband's grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY. Farnham reworked the piece by removing the drapery, exposing the grief sticken figure both physically and emotionally. The work was carved in marble by Robert A. Baillie of Closter, NJ.

At the time of it's placement in the cemetery, there was quite a swirl of rumors surrounding the figure. As recounted in Castle's autobiography, Castles in the Air, it was whisphered that Castle herself posed for the work. Farnham's original inspiration, in fact, was the pose of an exhausted dancer at the end of a routine. Castle would later pose for a work entitled The Dancer or The Feather Dancer, exhibited at both the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1923.

By the early 50's, the marble had become discolored and not to Castle's liking, so she had cast a bronze replacement. The original marble is now in the collection of Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.


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