The Stowitts Museum & Library - The Iris Courtesan Bronze

The Iris Courtesan danced in the celebration of the "Birthday of a Hundred Flowers", one of the loveliest of Chinese festivals, in the opera Fay-Yen-Fah, which premiered in 1926 in Monte Carlo (with choreography by George Balanchine) and in 1927 in San Francisco. The bronze sculpture, interpreted from the original painting by Stowitts, faithfully recreates the detail of the historically accurate costume design. She is holding an incense burner.

A Museum edition of fifty sculptures has been authorized, excluding artist's proofs. Editioned at Artworks Foundry in Berkeley, California using the lost wax process, this beautiful work of art was created from thirteen separate molds.

Charles N. Aronson, noted American collector and author of Sculptured Hyacinths, an illustrated biography of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, hailed The Iris Courtesan as "a masterpiece" and "the finest example of lyrical sculpture ever created by a 20th century American artist."