Female Figure (Standing Nude, Left Hand Raised)

Gaston Lachaise (French, 1882-1935).

This piece is final sale and not eligible for return.

Lachaise’s Female Figure (Standing Nude with Left Hand Raised), a statuette of an alluring nude with tightly rolled hair and downcast eyes, was inspired by Isabel Dutaud Nagle (1872-1957), a voluptuous woman whom he met in about 1903 and married in 1917. Writing several years after his death, his widow assigned the date of 1912 to the plaster model—a date that is probably too early by at least several years. Two bronze casts, both unlocated, were produced during the artist’s lifetime, the first, by 1917; and the second, very likely in 1927. The copyright date of 1927, which—as one of his frequent practices—Lachaise inscribed in the plaster model long after it had been made, was reproduced on the second cast and subsequent examples. The Lachaise Foundation, established in 1963 to oversee the artist’s estate and now located in New York City, authorized an edition of eleven numbered bronze casts. Nine, including the present example, have been made. The Foundation owns two of those casts as well as the plaster model, and has assigned the identification number LF 56 to the work.

Inscribed Lachaise twice, one with copyright, stamped Lachaise / Estate, dated 1927, numbered 4/11 (on the base).

Lachaise Foundation, by 1967

(with) Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles

Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1969

Sotheby's, New York, June 9, 2016, lot 36

Des Moines Art Center, Edmundson Art Foundation, Inc., Iowa Collects, 1985

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gaston Lachaise, 1882-1935: Sculpture and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles, 1963, n.p., no. 56 (another example illustrated)

H. Kramer, The Sculpture of Gaston Lachaise, New York, 1967, p. 48, no. 36 (an example illustrated)

D. B. Goodall, Gaston Lachaise: Sculptor, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 361-62, 410n. 70; vol. 2, p. 434

Des Moines Art Center, Iowa Collects, exhibition catalogue, Des Moines, Iowa, 1985, p. 53

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Modern Times: Aspects of American Art, 1907-1956, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1986, p. 66, no. 57 (another example illustrated)

Salander O’Reilly Galleries, Inc. (New York, NY; Beverly Hills, Calif.; Berlin, Ger.); and Meredith Long & Company (Houston, Texas), Gaston Lachaise: Sculpture, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1991, pp. 30-31, 82, no. 9 (another example illustrated)

S. Hunter, Lachaise, New York, 1993, pp. 118-19, 243 (another example illustrated)

Gerald Peters Gallery, Gaston Lachaise: A Modern Epic Vision, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2012, n.p., plate 16 (another example illustrated)