Bronze "Mouse" from "The Lion and Mouse"

Bronze "Mouse" from "The Lion and Mouse"

Animal sculpture--20th century.
Bronze sculpture, American--20th century.
Fredericks, Marshall M., 1908-1998

“The Lion and Mouse” was commissioned by the J. L. Hudson Company for the Eastland Mall in Harper Woods, Michigan. The lion is carved from limestone and the mouse is gold-plated bronze. Fredericks based this sculpture on the Aesop (c. 620 - c. 560 B.C.E.) fable The Lion and the Mouse in which a lion gets trapped in a hunter’s net and the mouse gnaws the ropes, setting the lion free. In the fable, the mouse also ends up being set free.

Not long after the sculpture was dedicated in 1957, the mouse was stolen. According to a September 3, 2007 news story by Neil Rubin of The Detroit News, “Weeks after Eastland opened [in 1957] a rambunctious teenager named Dan kicked the mouse from its moorings. The friend he was with that night, Norm, kept custody of the mouse for nearly half a century.”

The stolen and recovered mouse was gifted to the Detroit Historical Society by Eastland Center in 2007.

Over the years, multiple mice “disappeared,” but Fredericks maintained a sense of humor over the stolen mice. In the 1981 Colby Interview, he noted “…they were able so far to get six or seven of those off of that thing and they have been replaced. Of course, it has been pretty good newspaper copy for J.L. Hudson Company, too. I used to keep a little supply. I still have one mouse here in case they run out.”

Marshall M. Fredericks Papers
Series V, Box 16 Folder 29

n.d.

Use of this image requires permission from the Marshall M. Fredericks Archives.

V-16-29

image/jpeg

Image

Black and white print

8" x 10"