3-065-563 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Royal Academy Gold Medal Group, by William White, 1874. 'To the group we have engraved was awarded the gold medal for sculpture in the recent biennial competition of the students of the Royal Academy. The medal also carried with it a prize in books for the "best composition in sculpture," and a scholarship of £25, to be held for two years. The subject selected by the Academy for competition was, "Ranthea stabs herself over the Dead Body of her husband, Abradates" - the pathetic story told in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, book vii., chap. 3. The group was to be in the round, baked or cast in plaster, and to the scale of 3 ft. The reader may form some idea from our Engraving of the symmetrical composition and artistic treatment of the subject. The prize-winner was Mr. William White, a young sculptor of great promise. He was born at Kilburn, in 1845; studied under the eminent sculptor Mr. J. H. Foley, R.A., from 1864 to 1869; entered the Royal Academy in 1866; and carried off the first silver medal in the antique school, and the Restoration Medal in 1869'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.