Illicit Touch

Leda And The Swan, W.B. Yeats, 1924
‘A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?’
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Concept:
The Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, describes Zeus, God of Kings, appearing before Leda, Queen of Sparta, as a swan and seducing her. The story has inspired a number of great works of art by artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The Yeats poem tells the full romance and violence of the story.

Leda is cast and finished by hand in a base metal of brass which is then plated with 10 microns of Sterling Silver. The solidity of the cast gives the diletto its weight and quality. The differences in density and detail between the two sides of the diletto mean that it is a complicated casting process requiring hours of work by hand to get to the desired finish.