Carl Vilhelm Emil Milles

numbered: 1/12

Millesgården, Lidingö, Stockholm (inv. no. M168)

Overall in good condition with the usual very minor light scratches to surface consistent with age and handling. The sculpture needs to be screwed to a pedestal in order to stand.
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The present sculpture of Venus, ancient Greek goddess of love, emerging from her shell, like a pearl of the sea has until recently been exhibited at the Millesgården in Stolkholm, once the home of the artist and today a museum dedicated to his life and work.

Carl Milles was fascinated by the forms of sea creatures, intrigued by their movement in and harmony with water. In his lifetime he created a dynamic series of fountains and water features that incorporated his models of sea-dwelling creatures, as recorded in Verneuil (op. cit.). The legend of Venus as a goddess born out of the froth of the sea and carried ashore on a shell inspired Milles’s creative imagination. The present bronze was modelled in 1917 for a fountain that was to be placed in front of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. The movement of her hair and scarf evokes the stirring sea breeze. The fine balance of the tipping shell and leaning Venus suggests the motion of the waves and demonstrates Milles’s technical skills as a sculptor.

Milles was at the time strongly influenced by wartime Europe and increasingly turned to a lighter mythological world in his works, creating a natural universe that he could understand and admire.

RELATED LITERATURE
M.P. Verneuil, Carl Milles. Sculpteur Suédois, Paris/ Brussels, 1929, pl. 19-27 and 126-128; E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, Gründ, 1999, vol. ix, pp. 637-638