Ivor Roberts-Jones (British, 1916-1996) Sir Winston Churchill, maquette for the monument in Parliament Square numbered '26' (on the bronze base) bronze with a brown patina on a stone base 50.8 cm. (20 in.) high (excluding the base) Footnotes: Provenance The Artist, from whom purchased by the present owners Grandfather, Dr. Eugene Gancz, circa 1971 Private Collection, U.K. Dr Gancz was born in Hungary in 1912 but, being Jewish, was forced to flee in the 1930s to Austria to study for his degree in Medicine and then again to Basel, Switzerland after Austria's Anschluss with Germany. After completing his studies to become a doctor in February 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Dr Gancz applied for citizenship in the United Kingdom where he volunteered to serve in the army as a doctor. During the war, Dr Gancz worked as a doctor in the U.K. and served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Italy, achieving the rank of Major. After the war he was a General Practitioner in Kent and, for 41 years, a Police Surgeon, for which long service he was made an Honorary Consultant Medical Advisor to the Chief Constable of Kent. Feeling an enormous sense of gratitude to Churchill and the United Kingdom, Dr Gancz purchased the bronze figure of Winston Churchill, the man he respected so much and whom he held responsible for saving him and the few of his family who survived the Holocaust. The present work is a maquette for the large scale sculpture of Churchill by Roberts-Jones which stands in Parliament Square and was commissioned in 1971. The first important commission the artist had received came in 1961 from Lord Beaverbrook for a bust of Somerset Maugham. Following this, he was asked to sculpt the memorial statue for fellow artist Augustus John in Hampshire. This major work took three years to complete but was a great success and crucially led to his election as Associate of The Royal Academy. Further honours followed in 1975 when Ivor was awarded the C.B.E. Another cast of the present work was sold in these rooms for £112,500, 14 November 2018. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: AR AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com