Chiparus & the Ballets Russes: Twelve Masterworks from an Important Private Collection

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Lot 1
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Demeter Chiparus

Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 USD
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Description

  • Demeter Chiparus
  • Etoile de Mer (Starfish)
  • base engraved D. H. Chiparus and ETLING PARIS
  • cold-painted, parcel-gilt and silvered bronze; carved ivory; on an onyx and Portor marble base
  • 29 3/4 x 9 x 4 in. (75.6 x 22.9 x 10.2 cm)
  • edited by Etling, Paris

Provenance

Frederic M. Babbish Collection

Exhibited

A Private Collection of Art Deco Chryselephantine Sculpture, Sotheby’s, New York, July 17-August 25, 1995

Literature

Victor Arwas, Art Deco Sculpture:  Chryselephantine Statuettes of the Twenties and Thirties, London, 1975, p. 24
Bryan Catley, Art Deco and other Figures, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1978, p. 83
Umberto Di Cristina, "Isadora in Ivory:  The Art Deco Statuettes of Demeter Chiparus," FMR, November 1985, pp. 16 and 60-61 
Victor Arwas, Art Deco Sculpture, London, 1992, p. 54
Alberto Shayo, Chiparus:  Master of Art Deco, New York, 1993, p. 49 (for the plasteline model) and p. 152, pl. 83

Catalogue Note

The Ballets Russes presented the Underwater Kingdom scene of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko in Paris in 1911.  The hero of that opera is rescued by a sea princess, a role the composer fashioned for the lead soprano.  The Underwater Kingdom demonstrated possibilities for a new, underwater exoticism at roughly the same time the sport of synchronized swimming was coming into international vogue.  The sleek pose and crossed hands of Chiparus' Etoile de Mer evoke her attempt to return to earth with Sadko, though her costume is perhaps more befitting a water-ballet star than a diva from the opera.