Girl with Lyre
The gift, entitled Girl with Lyre, comprises a bronze figurehead and a marble podium by the renowned sculptor Ivan Mestrovic (1883 – 1962). The figure has a tilted head and hand as if to strum or pick the lyre, an ancient Greek stringed instrument. Although her heard is lowered, you are almost drawn into her as her fingers look as if they are in mid- motion.
The artist, Ivan Mestrovic, was an architect, writer, and a well-known Croatian sculptor. He travelled and studied throughout Europe and studied many prized works by Renaissance masters and French contemporary sculptors. After World War One, he returned to Croatia and later lived in Italy, Switzerland, and the United States of America. He has many pieces on display in the cities he lived in, and in 1947 was honoured with a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The gift was presented to the United Nations during the Millennium Summit in 2000.