Boy with Flute was Barthe's 1939 life sized depiction of dancer and model Juante Meadows who also posed nude for photographer Carl van Vechten, a friend of the sculptor.  Barthe' took Meadows' somewhat roundish physique and transformed him into an idealized Greek with an impish grin.  

The sculpture was never made in bronze because when Barthe' did a limited 

exhibit of the plaster mock-up shown here, it was not well received.  

The plaster version was destroyed, probably accidentally, in 1945.