George Minne

Sonja Knips, Vienna (acquired by 1926)
Private Collection, Austria (acquired from the above in 1959)

Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, George Minne en de kunst rond 1900, 1982, no. 27, illustrated in the catalogue

Leo van Puyvelde, George Minne, Brussels, 1930, no. 22, illustrated pl. 20
Inga Rossi-Schrimpf, George Minne. Das Frühwerk und seine Rezeption in Deutschland und Österreich bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, Weimar, 2012, no. P19, illustration of the bronze version p. 373

White marble. There are light handling marks to the surface and two naturally-occurring inclusions between the figure's legs, both of which have been filled. There are parallel horizontal repairs to the marble at the thinnest part of each ankle, which have been repaired and infilled to render them almost invisible. The sculpture presents beautifully in person and is in otherwise excellent condition.
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The exquisitely carved Le Petit blessé is one of the most iconic of George Minne’s early sculptures. The boy’s gesture of shielding his wounded arm combined with a tender kiss make it an especially touching portrayal. The model’s svelte, almost emaciated, physique marks a radical departure from the image of the muscular heroic youth so popular in nineteenth-century sculpture and conveys Minne’s fascination with human emotions.

George Minne was a most talented Belgian sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A specialist in small scale figurative works, his most powerful sculptures date to the first decades of his career, before World War I. Le Petit blessé is part of a small group of depictions of wounded or grieving figures in physical or emotional turmoil, which commenced with his La Souffrance humaine of 1884. These early works established Minne’s reputation as an innovative sculptor. Minne’s figures and the notion of internalized grief cut a stark, refreshing contrast to the idealistic nudes being created by so many of his contemporaries in Paris and Brussels. Minne later gained international recognition when he exhibited at the 8th Exhibition of the Secession in Vienna in 1900. His evocative figures were much admired by Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele and had a profound impact on their work.

The present work was formerly in the collection of Sonja Knips, née Baroness Poitiers des Eschelles, whose portrait by Gustav Klimt (1898) now hangs in the collection of the Belvedere in Vienna. Knips was an important patron of the Wiener Werkstätte and she was friends with Klimt, with whom she enjoyed a romantic relationship before her marriage to another man. In 1903 she commissioned the architect Josef Hoffmann to design the Villa Knips, a townhouse for her family, where Le Petit blessé was displayed in their dining room together with her portrait by Klimt.

Le Petit blessé was also cast in bronze editions by J. Petermann Bruxelles, Julius Meier-Graefe of La Maison Moderne and A. Brandstetter in Munich. Additionally, a unique version in ivory was also carved in 1898.