Yes Sir, That’s My Baby

/ Collections - Recent Acquisitions

Carl Paul Jennewein (American; born Germany, 1890–1978), Cupid and Gazelle, 1919. Cast by Priessmann, Bauer & Co. (Munich, Germany). Bronze with black patina, gilding, and polychrome. Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Purchase with funds provided by James Milton and Sallie R. Johnson. AFI25.2013
Carl Paul Jennewein (American; born Germany, 1890–1978), Cupid and Gazelle, 1919. Cast by Priessmann, Bauer & Co. (Munich, Germany). Bronze with black patina, gilding, and polychrome. Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Purchase with funds provided by James Milton and Sallie R. Johnson. AFI25.2013

By Graham Boettcher, Ph.D., The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art

Last fall, thanks to the generosity of James Milton and Sallie Johnson, the Museum acquired this exquisite and whimsical Art Deco bronze sculpture entitled Cupid and Gazelle, created in 1919 by the German-born American artist Carl Paul Jennewein. The sculpture, which celebrates the birth of the artist’s first child, Paolo, once belonged to Junius Spencer Morgan, III, grandson of the famed New York financier J. P. Morgan. In 1925, Jennewein created a companion piece entitled Cupid and Crane to celebrate the birth of his third child, Alessandro. This piece is one of thirteen known casts, and other examples can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The work is presently on view in the Museum’s Styslinger Gallery of American Art.