References

Cited from: Barbara Vujanović, Meštrović's mark in Zagreb, Ivan Meštrović Museums, Split, 2017. In the aforementioned book, the author extensively writes about Meštrović's busts of Josip Juraj Strossmayer and his monument on pages 54-66.

patinated plaster, 69 x 69 x 38 cm

Research information

The work is accompanied by expertises from the Ivan Meštrović Museum, Split, April 2024. The bust is a study for the monumental statue of J. J. Strossmayer, erected in Zagreb in 1926. Two other versions of the bust in plaster are known, one in the collection of the Meštrović Gallery (previously in the collection of Monsignor Svetozar Rittig) and the other in the collection of Mons. Dr. Đuro Kokša. The work was used for the casting of the bust of J. J. Strossmayer in front of the Church of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Prčanj, Montenegro, which, according to family letters and documents, was made in 1936.

PROVENANCE

Historical collection of the R.G. family, Dalmatia.

This original work by the famous and globally recognized Croatian sculptor of monumental monuments, public sculptures and free sculptural achievements belongs to the most intense Zagreb period of his creation and public work (1922 - 1944) during which he not only achieved a series of brilliant sculptural works and public sculptures for Croatian and foreign commissioners, but also through his pedagogical actions and leadership of the Academy of Fine Arts (professor from 1922, and rector from 1928 to 1944.) raised this glorious Croatian higher educational art institution to a European level. For illustration, it is worth mentioning that in 1924 in Zagreb, he modeled and cast in bronze the monumental monument to Josip Juraj Strossmayer, which was placed in 1926 on the same square of Zagreb's "Lenucijeve potkove", that he modeled the famous sculptural pair of Indians and cast in bronze during 1926 and 1927. also in Zagreb from where it was shipped in 1928 to Chicago. Then, he modeled the elegant upright female Act with crossed arms in 1929, which today, cast in bronze, adorns the green island in front of the building at Rački street no. 6 and that, in short, between 1930 and 1940 Meštrović in Zagreb modeled and sculpted a number of representative sculptural works of public and commemorative purposes, among them the marble History of Croats (1932.), by which he left his great "mark" in Zagreb, but also more widely in his homeland and abroad. The offer for the purchase of the Bust of Josip Juraj Strossmayer is accompanied by an expertize of Maja Šeparović Palada, a museum adviser of the Ivan Meštrović Museum. In her expertise, a series of relevant archival data and professional analysis of the sculptor's work on this bust, as well as two versions of the same bust from the collection of Meštrović's advocate monsignor Svetozar Ritig and the collection of monsignor Đuro Kokša, unequivocally confirm that the bust offered here is an original work by Ivan Meštrović. He made it in parallel with studies for the great Strossmayer monument (sitting and standing figures of the bishop), and that for the Zagreb newspaper Free Tribune around whose editorial board independent intellectuals who represented the Yugoslav idea had been gathering since 1921.The kind of associates of that newspaper were also the sculptor Ivan Meštrović and the painter Jozo Kljaković. In front of the bust in the middle of the chest are shallowly engraved letters: "M", inside which is a small "A", and the letter "T", inside which is a small "I". To the left below them is the letter "S", and under the letters "M-A" and "T-I" and a much larger letter "C". I can't resist the impression that it's a question of significance: MATI CRKVA and STROSSMAYER. Whether they were engraved by the sculptor or one of the later bust owners, which is possible because they are very shallowly embedded in plaster, we do not have an answer to that for now. BRP

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