The Cybis studio occasionally took an individual element from a ‘group’ sculpture and offered it as a separate retail edition under a different name. They were almost always animal studies; for example, the buck in the White Tailed Deer trio was offered as the single Deer in Motion, and one of the Charging Buffaloes was also issued singly as the American White Buffalo. All of these are shown in Into the Woods with Cybis, and all of those “spinoffs” were limited editions.
Sometimes the individual element spinoff was offered as an open edition instead, as when Cybis took two of the cubs from the 1983 limited edition Mother Bear and Three Cubs and simultaneously offered one as the open-edition Tan Bear (and several years later again, in black, as the Black Bear.) Another cub was also issued later as the Bear Cub, Sitting. The original beagle pups Branigan and Clancy were separated about ten years later and only one was then offered as simply Beagle… even though the original pair was still in the active retail line.
However, Cybis has only twice disconnected a sculpture of a person in order to offer it separately. As seen in the Ballet post, the impressive and very limited edition sculpture Swan Lake’s Odette includes a female ballerina who was also offered as the separate edition Curtain Call. However, the decoration/colorway of Curtain Call differs from that of Odette even though her pose is identical; as a result the “feeling” of the two sculptures is quite different.
The only other “separated” human piece was Lady Elizabeth who is 9.5″ high, issued as an edition of 1500 sometime between the autumn of 1996 and the spring of 1999. The May 1999 price list from Cybis shows her at $1295 which remained her pricepoint. It is certain that only a very small number of these (if any) were made and/or sold before the studio ceased all active production.
However, unlike Curtain Call, the Lady Elizabeth is absolutely identical in every way to her original appearance in the 1986 limited edition Lady and the Unicorn shown above.
The exact duplication of appearance seems odd when the subject is human. There’s certainly plenty of room for creativity in Lady Elizabeth’s wardrobe, one would think. Instead of rust-and-green yet again, why not jewel tones of deep blue and scarlet? Or cool lavender and mauve? The poor girl didn’t even get a new pair of shoes, or a different flower to hold in her hand, for heaven’s sake. Oh well…the chauvinists in the audience will probably mutter that it’s the “wages of womens’ lib!”
Name Index of Cybis Sculptures
Visual Index (for human figures/busts only)
About the Cybis Reference Archive
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