Identify this statue with anal hornets

July 3, 2015 5:30 AM

This statue of a naked man with some sort of hunting bird on his wrist floated by my Twitter timeline recently. It is perhaps most remarkable because the picture purports to show a hornets' nest built in, shall we say, the gluteal area. It looks like the statue is in a park, but where? And what is the subject?
posted by Devonian to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

The poster's profile says he's located in Providence, RI. I tried asking him, so check that later, maybe he'll respond, or you might try searching for statues of people with eagles in parks in Providence (or someone with more searching skills than me might find it from that)
posted by NoraReed at 6:09 AM on July 3, 2015

The statue was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Rhode Island, founded in 1831. They cast their first bronze statue in 1889. So that's a name and a little bit of an earliest possible date for the statue. I haven't figured out who it represents or where it's located yet, though.
posted by Secretariat at 6:29 AM on July 3, 2015

I'm pretty sure that the statue is in the Roger Williams Park in Providence.
posted by ldthomps at 6:55 AM on July 3, 2015

I found it- this is the Dyer Memorial in Roger Williams park. The man represents "The Athlete" and was modeled by a young man in Boston. The original design didn't have an eagle, but I guess they wanted the athlete to be so rad that he could catch an eagle in flight by grabbing its feet. Here's some other images of the statue. I guess you'd have to rent a boat in order to take a picture of this statue's butt!
posted by Secretariat at 6:57 AM on July 3, 2015

Huh - I was going to guess the statue was called "The Falconer" from this list. But then he looks pretty athletic, at the above information looks more specific to that statue. I could've sworn it was in a traffic circle when I visited last winter, so maybe it's been moved from the water - or maybe I'm remembering entirely incorrectly.
posted by ldthomps at 7:02 AM on July 3, 2015

Yeah, I'm not completely confident anymore about The Athlete (also not sure if that's the name or the "inspiration")- I wish I had another modern picture of the statue to compare to, and check if the bird is on the wrist or being held by the feet. And for some reason all these old postcards only show the front of the statue, not the butt. Or... maybe they moved it? This picture looks similar, but is named The Falconer.
posted by Secretariat at 7:07 AM on July 3, 2015

The Park Service list notes that the Falconer was giving in honor of Dyer, so it seems likely that this is the same "Athlete" statue that has moved over time. Perhaps a Providence mefite will stop by with a better photo for us.
posted by ldthomps at 7:19 AM on July 3, 2015

Man, there's a lot of statues tucked in and around that park. Falconer's in the center of this traffic island. (It looks like the Athlete is here.)
posted by steef at 11:13 AM on July 3, 2015

The trees in OP's photo match the trees visible from a similar angle in the street view of steef's The Falconer, especially that one distinctive pine tree.
posted by WasabiFlux at 2:59 PM on July 3, 2015

Google streetview from the same angle makes me pretty sure it's The Falconer, as shown by steef.
posted by pmb at 11:10 PM on July 3, 2015

Yay! And I think the The Falconer is the current real name of the statue originally designed as an athlete (steef's The Athlete looks like a different statue entirely, maybe one previously called a Gladiator). So we've pretty much figured out where these hornets live.
posted by Secretariat at 11:33 AM on July 4, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you, everyone. I can rest easy... if a little uncomfortably...
posted by Devonian at 3:25 AM on July 6, 2015