Louis-Ernest Barrias

Peter Fusco and Horst W. Janson, The Romantics to Rodin:  French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections, Los Angeles, 1980, p. 118

Barrias exhibited the model of La Nature Mysterieuse et La Nature se Devoilant Devant la Science in white marble at the Salon of 1893.  This first version of La Nature was entirely nude apart from the veil which hung over her head and fell to her feet at her back.  Suitably, given its title, the marble was purchased by the Medical Faculty of Bordeaux.  Barrias exhibited the model again in 1899 partly clothed and fashioned out of colored stones.  The model was later exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, and won the grand prix for Messrs. Susse Frères at the Exposition Universelle in Liège in 1905.  The renowned bronzier and cabinetmaker Thèodore Millet wrote at the time "It may be regarded as the finest of the works exhibited."  The allegorical title reflecting the contemporary notion of science's triumph over nature expressed through the provocative image of a woman undressing is entirely of the period.