Prosper d'Epinay

Christie's, London, 2 June 1995, lot 276

This exceptionally beautiful marble is typical of Prosper d'Épinay elegant style. In the catalogue for his 1893 studio sale, La baigneuse is seductively described as a young Greek girl undressing by a fountain:

'Une jeune Grecque, arrêtée près d’une fontaine avant d’entrer dans l’onde, retire sa tunique avec un mouvement plein de grâce et se laisse voir dans toute la beauté de ses formes classique et réalistes./ Ne représente-t-elle pas la femme à l’apogée de la beauté ?'

[A young Greek girl, having stopped before a fountain before entering, gracefully removes her tunic and permits herself to reveal her beauty in its classical and real forms. Does this woman not represent the apogée of beauty?]

Only three marble versions of La baigneuse are recorded by Roux Foujols, of which two measure 120cm. and another 125cm. (op. cit.). The present marble is a reduced size version and is almost certainly the marble that sold at Christie's on 2 June 1995, lot 276.

Prosper d'Épinay was born in Mauritius in 1836, the son of the prominent lawyer and politician, Adrien d'Épinay. In 1857 he moved to Paris to study caricature under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Dantan, and, from 1861, he worked in Rome for Luigi Amici. A British subject, he was active in London during the 1860s and 1870s, and, despite eventually settling in Paris, he continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy in London until 1881.

RELATED LITERATURE

F. Thiébault-Sisson, “L’art élégant, Prosper d’Épinay”, in La nouvelle revue, 9, vol. 49, Nov. Dec. 1887, pp. 830-849; P. Roux Foujols, Prosper d'Épinay (1836-1914): Un mauricien à la cour des princes, Ile Maurice, 1996, pp. 90-91.