Bronze Baby and Blitz

Last week Sculptor Jacob Epstein made news by exhibiting in Manhattan a statue that no one could possibly object to. This Epstein was an appealing, life-size bust of a child, arms outstretched, modeled after Epstein's infant granddaughter, Leda. It was to be put on sale for the benefit of British war relief.

The statue was brought to the U. S. by Edith Lutyens, niece of famed English Royal Academician Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens. As Miss Lutyens was on the point of leaving London Sculptor Epstein impulsively put it in her care. It was not even wrapped. Before she got to the boat tram air-raid alarms sounded. "The blitz was quite strong and the guns were cracking off and shrapnel was whizzing about," said Miss Lutyens, describing her flight later. "I was absolutely terrified that it would be hit or have a hand or its head knocked off."

When Miss Lutyens and her bronze baby took to the London subways, sleepy air-raid refugees rubbed their eyes in horror. On the blacked-out train ride to Liverpool a flashlight suddenly revealed Miss Lutyens and her infantile fragment to a woman seated opposite. The woman fainted. While waiting for the boat (the White Star Liner Georgic) in Liverpool, Miss Lutyens stored the statue with her other baggage in a basement. Meanwhile Liverpool, too, had an air raid. When she returned for the baby, she had to dig it out from under a heap of bomb-strewn rubble. She trundled it to the dock in a commandeered sausage truck. She was really quite worried that something would happen to the baby. But nothing did.

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