Perched high on a pediment on the Renfield Street side of the former Sun, Fire and Life Insurance Company building in Glasgow, stands a classical nude figure of Apollo, holding a flaming torch in one hand, and a lyre in the other. His idealised body contrasts with his distinctive face while patches of green moss grow over his skin and weeds spring around his feet.
Flanking him to his left is a powerfully built allegorical figure of a bearded older man pulling a cowl over his head representing ‘Night’, and to Apollo’s right an equally muscular female figure who appears to be doing the opposite, representing ‘Day’. Both reminiscent of Michelangelo’s sculptures of Dawn and Dusk from the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence.
William Birnie Rhind created these sculptural works between 1889 and 1894 for the new head office of the Sun, Fire and Life Assurance Company, and almost as soon as the red sandstone edifice, designed by architect William Leiper, and Rhind’s sculptures were completed, it was warmly praised. The Artist in February 1895 describes the new building and particularly Rhind’s sculptures in the following terms :
Glasgow has just added one of the most artistic buildings it is possible to imagine, in the new offices of the Sun Fire and Life Assurance Company, at the corner of West George Street and Renfield Street. The building has been designed by Mr. W. Leiper, in the sixteenth-century French Renaissance style, and being constructed of red stone, presents an imposing appearance. Both frontages carry a large amount of high-class sculpture, executed by Mr. William Rhind, of Edinburgh, and it is this sculpture which distinguishes this building from all others around. Thus the capitals of the street floor are emblematic of the signs of the Zodiac, and there is a splendidly executed figure of Apollo, and others of Day and Night, surmounting the pediment on the Renfield Street frontage. The treatment of the upper stories follows that of the chateaux of France, with enriched dormers, giving the building the broken sky-line which is characteristic of this style of architecture. The main entrance is at the angle of the building, and forms the basement of a large octagon, which is crowned by a domed roof and lantern. Taken as a whole this is the most artistic of Glasgow’s business houses. (The Artist, February 1895, p. 77)
Galerie Jamie Mulherron 