David with his Harp - Sculpture by Sarah Myers

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers
Sculpture in terracotta

This ornate sculpture is a mingling of various times. It was inspired by a sixteenth century painting of King David, where the painter dressed the ancient monarch in a rich and peculiar costume of the artist's own time and perched him on a tree with other ancestors in the line of the Christ-child – a symbolic subject coming from earlier medieval days. In my sculpture the King is alone, barely laying his fingers to the invisible harp-strings; pensive, wrapped perhaps in the reflections brought by his own prophetic music. I have rendered the rich embroidered clothes with lines directly drawn into the clay – a technique called sgraffito – and roughly hatched with a sharp tool to paradoxically create the deep fur collar of his cloak. His large harp rears in front of him like the prow of a ship; a few leaves from the tree cluster at his back.

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers.  Detail of face.

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers.  Side view.

David with Harp, Sarah Myers
Details.

David with his Harp, Sarah Myers.  Detail of back.

David with his Harp.  Sculpture by Sarah Myers.