Artwork Details
- Title
- Billy
- Artist
- Albert Laessle (1877 – 1954)
- Year
- 1914; installed 1919; recast 2018
- Medium
- Bronze on granite base
- Dimensions
- Height 2'2″ (base 1'10")
Artwork Description
Billy, inspired by and rendered after a family goat, was one of several animal studies that Albert Laessle created. Laessle’s work portrayed animals so realistically that he was accused by fellow students and art jurors of casting directly from life. He silenced his critics by making a similar sculpture in wax, a material that could not easily be cast.
Billy was given to the City of Philadelphia by Eli Kirke Price II through Association for Public Art (then known as Fairmount Park Art Association), and was installed in 1919 to the delight of the many children who have frequented Rittenhouse Square since that time. The sculpture had originally been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art’s 110th Annual Exhibition in 1915. A later sculptural group of Pan, Dancing Goat, and Duck and Turtle (c. 1928) is installed in Camden, New Jersey, in a park in front of the Walt Whitman Center, formerly a public library.
In 2018, the City’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (Creative Philadelphia) oversaw the conservation of the artwork. After a century of being climbed on and exposed to the elements, the bronze sculpture began to wear thin in certain areas. A new cast of Billy was installed in September 2018, and the original work will be moved indoors to the children’s room of the Philadelphia City Institute library branch in Rittenhouse Square.
Artwork Credits
Gift of Eli Kirke Price II to the City of Philadelphia through Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association)
Owned by the City of Philadelphia
Artwork Media
Museum Without Walls
Voices:
PHILIP PRICE, JR. (1934-2023) was the grandson of Eli Kirk Price II, who was responsible for purchasing Billy for installation in Rittenhouse Square. He served on the Board of the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art).
NANCY HEINZEN is the author of The Perfect Square, a history of Rittenhouse Square. She has been a resident of Rittenhouse Square for over 40 years and is committed to its preservation.
PHILIP HYUN SU and SARAH MI AE PRICE are the great-great-grandchildren of Eli Kirk Price II.
Producer: Sharon Mashihi