Émile-Antoine Bourdelle

Tajan, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 16 November 2006, lot 30

Overall the condition is very good with minor dirt and wear to the surface consistent with age. There are some reddish marks in a few areas and a few very small chips and abrasions to the terrasse.
"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."

I made this group for Alsace. Carved from a huge stone, it towers on the top of a rock at Niederbruck, above Massevaux. The Mother holds the Child against her; with a familiar movement, she raises it high. One of the hands of the Virgin Mother holds one of the Infant's hands who raises his arms as if in offering, and, as the Infant stands upright upon the arm that lifts him, his other hand settles quite naturally on his mother's sweet head, and thus the already pensive child displays with his young body the image of the Cross. With her grave, inclined head, her gaze which carries far and high, the Virgin appears to have a foreboding of the divine burden she is bearing. Here, matter is thought; the stone carries the soul; here Man follows the command of the heart and the clarity of the work lies in the faith of Man. This work is my certainty.

Antoine Bourdelle (as quoted in Jianou and Dufet, op. cit., p. 37)

This deeply moving image of the Virgin and Child follows a model created by Bourdelle at the request of a wealthy Mulhouse industrialist, Leon Vogt, whose family had vowed to erect a votive statue of the Virgin in thanks for their lands being spared from the destruction of the Great War. The above description, written by Bourdelle himself, describes the Vierge à l'enfant, also known as The Virgin of Alsace, which, at six metres in height, dominates the Alsacian landscape. The calm solemnity of this beautiful image is enhanced by the Virgin's medieval headdress and the broad, sweeping, folds of drapery. The first version was originally modelled in plaster and was subsequently cast in bronze (Jianou and Dufet, op. cit., p. 133). However, the statue delivered to Vogt follows the second version, which represents the final evolution of the model. The present marble similarly follows this second version. According to Jianou and Dufet, a total of seventeen such marble examples of the second version were carved, several of which are in important public and private collections, including the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (inv. no. 51), the Boymans-van-Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, and the Aga Khan collection (Jianou and Dufet, op. cit., p. 134, no. 640).

RELATED LITERATURE
I. Jianou and M. Dufet, Bourdelle, Paris, 1975, pp. 37, 133-134, no. 640

Sotheby's would like to thank Colin Lemoine and Clementine Delplancq of the Musée Bourdelle, Paris, for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.

The Museum Europeu d'Art Modern, Barcelona (MEAM)

The Museu Europeu d’Art Modern (European Museum of Modern Art) is one of Barcelona’s hidden gems, situated in an elegant 18^th-century palace in the heart of the city’s old town, El Born. Founded for the promotion of 20^th and 21^st-century figurative sculpture and painting, the museum houses an outstanding and growing collection of contemporary art. Each year it hosts the Figurativas Painting and Sculpture Awards, which brings together representations of the human form by contemporary artists from across the globe.

The following lots are a carefully curated selection of highlights from the Museum’s collection of 19^thand 20^th-century sculpture. It begins with a series of elegant classicising and Romantic marbles, led by Émmanuel Hannaux’s magisterial Le poète et la sirène (lot 34). These works evidence the belle époque fascination with the idealised human form, combined with wistful and exotic subjects. Affortunato Gori’s sumptuous Oriental Dancer (lot 37) highlights the fin de siècle taste for Orientalist subjects, reflecting major literary works from the time, notably Oscar Wilde’s Salome (1906). Historicism is represented in the very rare and dramatic original terracotta Monument to Beethoven by Théodore Rivière (lot 48).

The divergent movement towards a modernist aesthetic is witnessed in George Minne’s beautifully carved Le petit blesse II (lot 59) which represents the Symbolist desire to depict inner emotions in plastic form. Several works within the sale were created by artists like Minne, who were heavily influenced or trained by Auguste Rodin. The most striking of these is Louis Dejean’s column of swirling and twisting bodies (lot 82), which recalls Rodin’s Gates of Hell. A more classicising modernist aesthetic is seen in Fritz Klimsch’s elegant rendering of Frühling (Spring) (lot 63). This is complemented by Raymond Delamarre’s strong Art Deco David (lot 55), and his totemic torso LaBolognaise (lot 70). However, perhaps the most beautiful of the Art Deco sculptures is the Nude Girl by Jaume Otero i Camps (lot 40), a Catalan artist with native resonances for MEAM. Charles Despiau’s Le Faune (lot 58), seen on the cover of the catalogue, displays a softer classicism in line with the work of Aristide Maillol. Portraiture is represented by François Pompon’s charming Bust of André Leproust, and Jan and Joël Martel’s extraordinary clean-cut image of Professor Henri Vignes.

Each of the works in the catalogue were exhibited in Una mica d’escultura, si us plau! L’escultura europea del segle XX at MEAM, a dedicated exhibition of the Museum’s collection of European 19^thand 20^th-century sculpture.