The Cunégonde Collection

Back in 2010, Masters & Munn were approached by renowned garden designer, Thomas Hoblyn, to create a series of nine copper sculptures to feature in his show garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Tom’s vision was of a lush stone-walled garden with a snake-like water feature rippling through the centre inspired by Voltaire’s novel, ‘Candide’.

The nine life-size copper nudes were to be placed in ‘living walls’ of green vegetation and mounted in the water feature, depicting fleeting moments in the story of 'Candide', reflecting the hero's obsession with the lady Cunégonde.

Candide’s passionate desire for the sensual object of his attention makes it hard for him to focus on her as a complete person, and so he is teased with fleeting fantasies of her body in fractured form. His obsession moves around her body as he chases her around the world and through his lifetime until he finally unites with her.

In this way, the sculptures themselves show only partial forms, some of them fractured from certain angles but appearing whole from other vantage points, mirroring the hero’s gaze.

Hoblyn’s clever planting surrounded the sculptures with tongue like leaves and rich green beds of foliage to emphasise the sensuality and eroticism of the figures.

The original electroformed copper sculptures were unique, and most have already been sold to private collectors, but due to popular demand we made available both some limited editions in other materials such as cold cast copper, cold cast bronze, cast quartz, and foundry cast bronze, in addition to very special unique pieces in the series adorned with hand-engraved ferns.

We have recently released for sale one of the final remaining original copper sculptures from the collection, the deeply seductive ‘Research & Development’, which you can read more about here. This piece from the original collection makes the most striking impact on any garden or interior space.

As well as RHS Chelsea, parts of the collection have been exhibited at RHS Wisley, RHS Hyde Hall, Leeds Castle, Godinton House and Ightham Moat.