In this bronze sculpture by Cardiff-born Edith Downing, a partially nude, almost life-size woman crouches on the floor, clutching money bags with one hand, the other reaching out greedily for more. Her face is hard-set, even cruel. Now called ‘Avarice’ (greed), the work was originally titled ‘Spirit of the Trusts’, and is probably a political commentary on the American Bankers’ Panic of 1907, an international crisis comparable to the more recent financial crash of 2007-09. A plaster version was shown in at the Salon in Paris in 1908, where it was met with admiration, and some surprise that this was the work of a female artist. Sculpture at the time was almost exclusively dominated by men. Downing was among a group of women who rose to the fore despite the barriers put in their place.
Here Downing uses the nude female body – an unexpected subject in itself for a woman artist of this time - to make a bold political statement. It demonstrates Downing’s use of art to actively engage with contemporary politics, her defiance of set gender roles, and it pre-dates her activism as a suffragette with the Women's Social and Political Union (the WSPU).