One of his series of Ideal nudes, Onslow Ford's full-size plaster of Peace was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887 (no. 1944), where it was considered by the critic Edmond Gosse to be “the most delightful contribution to the exhibition”. Three years later a life-size bronze version was shown (now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). In Gosse's 1895 article in Magazine of Art, entitled Sculpture in the House, Peace was illustrated alongside statuettes by Leighton and Thornycroft in domestic settings, and was subsequently one of Ford's first works to be cast by Arthur L. Collie.
Literature
W. Armstrong, ‘E. Onslow Ford’, Portfolio, 1890, p. 70
E. Goose, Sculpture in the House, Magazine of Art, 1895, p.369
M. H. Spielmann, British Sculptures and Sculptors of To-Day, London, 1901, p.54-5.
S. Beattie, The New Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1938, p.153, pl. 145 (another cast) and p. 188.
Joanna Barnes Fine Arts ed., Exhibition catalogue, Leighton and his sculptural legacy: British sculpture 1875-1930, London, 1996, pp.54-5, no.24.
