''Flora'' is a wax sculpture of Roman goddess

Flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

by English sculptor Richard Cockle Lucas, currently located in the

Bode Museum The Bode-Museum (English: ''Bode Museum''), formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (''Emperor Frederick Museum''), is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of Germ ...

in Berlin.

Provenance

Wilhelm von Bode Wilhelm von Bode (10 December 1845 – 1 March 1929) was a German art historian and museum curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913. He was the creator and first curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now c ...

, the general manager of the Prussian Art Collections for the Berlin Museum, spotted the bust in a London gallery and purchased it for a few pounds for the

Kaiser Friedrich Museum The Bode-Museum (English: ''Bode Museum''), formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (''Emperor Frederick Museum''), is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of Germa ...

in 1909. Bode was convinced that the bust was by

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

and the Berlin Museum authorities, and the German public, were delighted to have "snatched a great art treasure from under the very noses" of the British art world. In 1910, it was revealed that the work may have actually been created by the English sculptor, Richard Cockle Lucas. Shortly after the purchase, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' ran an article claiming that the bust was the work of Lucas, having been commissioned to produce it from a painting. Lucas's son, Albert, then came forward and swore under oath that the story was correct and that he had helped his father to make it. Albert was able to explain how the layers of wax had been built up from old candle ends; he also described how his father would stuff various debris, including newspapers, inside the bust. When the Berlin museum staff removed the base they found the debris, just as Albert had described it, including a letter dated in the 1840s. Despite this evidence, Bode continued to claim that his original attribution was correct. To support this, he displayed the Flora bust among a selection of Lucas's lesser work – this exhibition rather backfired, however, as it showed that Lucas had been regularly making wax sculptures inspired by the great works of previous times. In April 2021, the bust was dated using carbon-14, which confirmed that it was sculpted in the 19th century. The bust remains on display in what is now the Bode Museum labeled "England", "19th Century" with a question mark.{{cite web, last=Härig , first=Beatrice , title=Flora's duel for waxy smile, url=http://www.monumente-online.de/10/01/sonderthema/Madame_Tussaud_Wachsrestaurierung_Moulagen_Wachskunst_Bodemuseum_Flora_Votivfigur.php , work=Monumente, accessdate=15 December 2010, language=German, date=February 2010

References

Sculptures in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin category:Wax sculptures Works attributed to Leonardo da Vinci