Who's That Girl?
Edited in part from an article by Leon Edward Joseph, Artists & Models Magazine, 1926
Arthur Von Frankenberg sculpted his figures from a live model. Her name was Leona Osborne, a
celebrated English model of the day. The story goes that one day, while painting and entertaining
some friends at the same time in his new art-filled studio, one of his visitors looked around
for a place to dispose of his cigar ashes and found none. Leona, who was posing for the current
work at hand, realized the man's concern and jumped up from the divan and picked up a large Benares
brass bowl, which was a full three feet across and had been sitting on a taboret. She struck
an eccentric pose and offered it to the visitor for his ashes. Everyone laughed at the new
five foot six inch ashstand!
The success of the ash reciever led to a whole series of flower holders, ashtrays, lamps, ashstands,
bookends, etc for the home. Miss Osborne remained the model for the entire series.
Von Frankenberg captured the nude female figure with its enticing beauty without any suggestion of vulgarity. He used as his slogan the words of Anatole France, "The most beautiful draperies are despicable compared with the lines of a beautiful body. Art is the representation of nature and nature is preeminently the human body; it is nude."
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