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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, PALM BEACH
Lot 27
ARISTIDE MAILLOL(1861-1944)Étude pour la Montagne
Conceived in 1937, this bronze version cast by the Alexis Rudier Foundry in a numbered edition of 4 plus 2 artist's proofs.
Conceived in 1937, this bronze version cast by the Alexis Rudier Foundry in a numbered edition of 4 plus 2 artist's proofs.
17 November 2020, 17:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$100,312.50 inc. premium
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ARISTIDE MAILLOL (1861-1944)
Étude pour la Montagne
inscribed with the artist's monogram, numbered '4/6' and stamped with the foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier Fondeur, Paris' (on the base)
bronze
12 in (30.4 cm) (height)
Conceived in 1937, this version cast by the Alexis Rudier Foundry in a numbered edition of 4 plus 2 artist's proofs
inscribed with the artist's monogram, numbered '4/6' and stamped with the foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier Fondeur, Paris' (on the base)
bronze
12 in (30.4 cm) (height)
Conceived in 1937, this version cast by the Alexis Rudier Foundry in a numbered edition of 4 plus 2 artist's proofs
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work was confirmed by the late Madame Dina Vierny.
Provenance
Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the present owner on July 7, 1965.
"I began posing for large monumental drawings and for the carving of Nymphs. . . Next came The Mountain, for which he returned to projects he had had at the beginning of his life, but with a certain change in the conceptions that determined his work. . . Maillol started out with the pose of a seated woman which he had imagined as early as 1900. It was a figure to which he often returned in his career, tirelessly seeking to reconstruct the articulation of its volumes. He sculpted several statuettes before moving on to the monumental figure"
(Bertrand Lorquin, Aristide Maillol, New York, 1995, pp. 137-38)
La Montagne is among the most elegant of Aristide Maillol's oeuvre concerning the seated female nude. Maillol's soft treatment of the model's features defines his most successful works, gifting them with a timeless beauty. The Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris commissioned the first monumental version of La Montagne in stone in 1936. Famed photographer Brassaï visited the artist at his studio and photographed him while he worked on the giant plaster version. These photographs today form a revealing archive on the history of the model, which is celebrated as one of the artist's most important late works.
La Montagne in its monumental lead form can also be seen in the Jardin des Tuileries, Paris; Canberra Museum, Australia; The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; and Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.