L12230

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Lot 200
  • 200

Paul Troubetzkoy

Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
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Description

  • Paul Troubetzkoy
  • Madame Goujon
  • signed and dated: Paul Troubetzkoy Paris 1906 stamped: AA. HEBRARD CIRE PERDUE
  • bronze

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Hébrard, 1908;
New York, Hispanic Society of America, 1911;
London, Sladmore Gallery, 2008

Literature

O. Wooton, Prince Paul Troubetzkoy: The Belle Epoque Captured in Bronze, exhib. cat., Sladmore, London, 21 May - 27th June 2008, no. 9, pp. 31-2 and 68

Condition

Overall the condition of the bronze is very good with some minor wear to the patina consistent with wear and handling. There may be an area of repair to the neck, where there is particular wear to the patina.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

Prince Paul Troubetzkoy was born at Lake Maggiore in Italy, the son of a Russian diplomat and an American opera singer. Theirs was an artistic household and the young Troubetzkoy, together with his brothers, grew up surrounded by painters and musicians. Paul began to sculpt at an early age, using the new material plastilene - an oil or wax based clay - to create sketches of animals. It was one such study of a horse's head which brought him to the attention of the great Italian sculptor Giuseppe Grandi.

Troubetzkoy moved to Milan in 1884 and worked fleetingly under the sculptors Donato Barcaglia and Ernesto Bazzaro, before abandoning their apprenticeship to pursue his own artistic vision. The young sculptor began exhibiting at the Brera Academy in 1886 and went on to exhibit at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889. His success as a sculptor was recognised in 1898 when he was invited to teach sculpture at the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts. He remained in Russia until 1905 and made full use of his multiple nationalities by exhibiting in both the Italian and the Russian sections of the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. He received the Grand Prix de Sculpture for Russia.

After his sojourn in Russia he moved to Paris, where he had already begun exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne in 1904, when he had shared a gallery with the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The sculptor remained in Paris until he visited New York in 1914 for the opening of his exhibition at Knoedler & Co. At the outbreak of the Great War Troubetzkoy decided to settle in the United States, only returning to Europe in the 1920s.

The sculptor's aristocratic and international background provided a vast clientele for his portrait sculptures, for which he became well-known. His impressionistic, characterful, yet flattering likenesses were exactly suited to the opulent turn of the century. They were the three-dimensional equivalent of coveted portraits by Giovanni Boldini and John Singer Sargent, whose studio Troubetzkoy borrowed whilst he was in London. Troubetzkoy's glittering list of subjects included Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Giacomo Puccini, Enrico Caruso and fellow sculptor Auguste Rodin. Like Boldini and Sargent, Troubetzkoy became a celebrated personality in his own right and was very much part of the international set he portrayed.

Troubetzkoy modelled the portraits of high society's most beautiful women from across Europe, Russia and America. An early portrait of Adelaide Aurnheimer - the wife of a wealthy industrialist - entitled After the Ball, became one of Troubetzkoy's most famous works and the prototype for his seated portraits of women in exquisite and elaborate gowns.

The present bronze depicts the sitter in a slightly less formal mood, with her pet Collie dog at her feet. Madame Goujon's gown, with its frills surrounding bare shoulders above puffed sleeves and a neatly corseted waist, shows her to be at the very forefront of fashion, whilst her bouffant coiffure frames a remarkably pretty face. The inclusion of the dog is no accident as Troubetzkoy was well-known for his animal sculptures and was a celebrated animal-lover and an outspoken advocate of vegetarianism.

The sitter is French and the bronze is a rare cast by the Paris founder A. A. Hebrard. The portrait was probably cast in bronze specifically for inclusion in the exhibition of fifty works by Troubetzkoy in bronze, plaster and marble at the Galerie Hebrard in 1908. The bronze was also included in the important one-man show at the Hispanic Society of New York in 1911. The exhibition, organised at the request of the Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla, introduced Troubetzkoy's work to America and was the first of a series of shows across the United States. Thus Troubetzkoy's portraits were brought to the attention of New York's high society and a generation of America's most priviledged classes were inspired to have their portraits modelled by him.

RELATED LITERATURE
S. Rebora, Paolo Troubetzkoy: i ritratti, Milan, 1998, pp. 9-18