Caryatid

Photo: Ken McAllister

Date: 1971
Size: H: 7' 4 1/2" (88 1/2") x W: 12 1/4" x D: 10 1/2
Weight: 791 lbs.
Casts: 1
Form: Column
Material: Bronze

Exhibited at a Mayhew retrospective at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 1971; and at a retrospective exhibition at the Port Angeles Fine Art Center, August 1988. Cast in red silicon bronze at the Eugene Aluminum and Brass Foundry.

In 2016, Caryatid was donated by the family to the Royal BC Museum in Victoria. The sculpture was unveiled in a ceremony in September that year, sited in the Native Plant Garden on a terrace just above the Spirit column.

Caryatid has a bronze base, designed as part of the sculpture, though cast later. With the base, Caryatid is 1078 lbs. and 9’ 4 1/2" in height.

Caryatids are the sculptured maidens who stand as pillars supporting the Erechtheum temple on the Acropolis. Mayhew was always interested in the relation of architecture to people.

Note: The top section of Caryatid was cast at the Berkeley Art Foundry in 1976-77, as Passageway, with a height of 25” including plexi base. Photos show that the mold was somewhat reworked. See Passageway.