(The Museum of Modern Art, New York).

However, as
Andreotti has pointed out, Arp transformed the
lessons of Brancusi into his own vision of the natural
world: "The angular, crystalline forms of Brancusi's
Endless Column, however, have been translated into
the fluid curves of Arp's personal idiom." (M.
Andreotti, "New Unity of Man and Nature: Jean Arp's
Growth of 1938" in Art Institute of Chicago Museum
Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, 1990, p. 138).
Jean (Hans) Arp (1886-1966)
Cristal et feuille
with raised monogram and numbering 'IIII/V' (on
the underside)
polished bronze
Height: 18 in. (45.7 cm)
Conceived in 1960 and cast in 1964
"Man, plant, crystal, shell, starfish, vessel, tripod,
symbol, cloud, star, landscape--all come alive in Jean
Arp's sculpture" (C. Giedion-Welcker, Jean Arp, New
York, 1957, p. XIV).
The present sculpture takes as its subject the natural
world, a thematic touchstone throughout Arp's
oeuvre. Made in the last decade of the artist's life, it
is an example of the culmination of Arp's creative
genius. In his last years, Arp lived and worked in the
Ticino, in Southern Switzerland, a place where stone
was present everywhere, in the landscape and
architecture wherever one turned. This symbiotic
harmony appealed to the artist. His biographer
Herbert Read recalls: "Arp had always liked to see
his sculpture in a natural setting. Towards the end of
his life, in his garden in the Ticino, he carved large
slabs of stone into circular shapes like millstones,
pierced with his characteristic motives. Arp loved this
stone country, where his worked merged insensibly
into the natural background. There the organic
growth of his work came into final fruition" (H. Read,
The Art of Jean Arp, New York, 1968, p. 102).
Following a strong tradition of thirty years of
producing sculpture in the round, Feuille sur cristal
embodies Arp's distinctive transformation of organic
form into abstract lyrical shapes. The juxtaposition of
a crystalline geometric formation with the organically
flowing leaf transfigures imagery of natural growth
into an abstract beauty. Meant to be viewed in the
round, the bronze surface and soaring trajectory
create a sense of generative dynamism. Like many
other works from this period, such as Bud, 1957 (The
Israel Museum, Jerusalem) the present work is
intrinsically related to Arp's important early sculptural
works of the 1930s such as Growth, 1938 (The Art
Institute of Chicago). Like the present sculpture,
these early works similarly took as their subject-growth, metamorphoses and botanical fertility--while
often using a similar admixture of geometric and
rounded soaring shapes. There are clearly formal
parallels in this work, and throughout Arp's practice,
to the work of Constantin Brancusi, particularly Bird in
Space, 1932-1940 (Solomon R. Guggenheim
Foundation, New York) and Endless Column, 1918

Arp's distinctive vocabulary of biomorphic forms

proved to be widely influential and have become part
of the modernist idiom of abstraction. Andreotti has
written: "That the organic sculptural form which Arp
arrived at in the early 1930s provided an ample
vehicle for expression is demonstrated, moreover, by
the readiness with which it was adopted by other
sculptors and has become part of the standard formal
repertoire available to modern artists. Moore,
Hepworth, and Noguchi are just a few of the better
known sculptors to develop this organic vocabulary in
their own unique ways" (The Early Sculpture of Jean
Arp, 1989, pp. 253-54). And certainly, Arp's inventive
forms have become part of the modernist idiom of
abstraction.
Feuille sur cristal is a classic example of the
culmination of Arp's creative force. "His genius gave
the world a new family of forms that parallels,
comments on and competes successfully with nature.
All this Arp achieved within the new syntax of
twentieth century art. His respect for the natural and
his profound understanding of the modernist tradition
were never in conflict. His triumph was to affect a
new synthesis of the familiar and the invented" (Jean
Arp from the Collections of Mme Marguerite Arp and
Arthur and Madeleine Lejwa, exh. cat., The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1972, n.p.).
Provenance
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York.
Hokin Gallery Inc., Chicago.
Acquired from the above by the family of the present
owner, 28 April 1981.
Literature
E. Trier, Jean Arp Sculpture: His Last Ten Years, New
York, 1968, p. 25, no. 213 (larger marble version
illustrated, no. 27, pl. 25).
This bronze is registered in the archives of the
Fondation Arp and in the catalogue raisonn GiedionWelker under the number 129.
Henri Laurens (1885-1954)
Construction
incised with monogram (on the top of the base)
painted wood and metal
Height: 7 in. (19.8 cm.)Length: 11 in. (27.7 cm.)
Executed in 1917-1918; unique
Construction is a rare polychrome from Laurens'
important series of cubist sculptures made in Paris in
1914-1918. A similar metal sculpture titled La Guitare,
1

1918, is in the collection of the Museum Ludwig,

Cologne. The present sculpture depicts a guitar, and is
related to the revolutionary representations of musical
instruments made by Picasso and his fellow cubists.
For Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso, the
guitar was a significant metaphor for creativity, and
Laurens' abiding interest in music underscored his
frequent use of the metaphor. Laurens made a number
of papiers colls of guitars (see exh. cat., 1985, op. cit.,
pp. 79-81, nos. 67-69), as well as sculptures and
drawings on this subject. Laurens' connection to the
Cubist circle began in 1911 while living in Montmartre,
where he developed a close friendship with Braque.
Braque's wife Marcelle had been a childhood friend of
Laurens' wife Marthe, and Laurens' first studio was so
close to Braque's that they could talk to one another
through their windows. Braque and Laurens would
listen to music together, and while Laurens particularly
liked classical and operatic music, he came to be
interested in jazz as well. Laurens also knew Alexander
Archipenko and Fernand Lger, who also collected
Laurens' work. Having suffered tuberculosis of the
bone at age 17, Laurens lost a leg to amputation and
was not conscripted during World War I. During this
time, he would often visit the studios of other artists
living in Paris, including Gris and Picasso, participating
in the cross pollination of ideas and techniques that
was still occurring if on a more limited basis during the
war. Construction follows Picasso's experimental
series of guitar paintings, collages, and sculptures
such as Picasso's Guitare (fig. 1). In keeping with
Cubist idiom, Laurens breaks with traditional cues of
naturalist representation, replacing perspective with
fluctuating views. Departing from the traditions of
carving and modeling of his training--he came from a
family of coppersmiths and studied with an ornamental
sculptor--Laurens assembles the constituent parts
contrasting two dimensional elements: sheet music
rises within the body of the guitar. The structuring of
each component plays with the effects of intersecting
planes and reflections, contrasting metal against wood.
Indeed, as Douglas Cooper has pointed out, Laurens'
constructions are "more closely carefully made, more
elaborated and conceived in more sculpture terms than
Picasso's home carpentered works. Not only did
Laurens build up his subject with a clearly articulated
structure of planes, to create volume and define a
spatial area, but he also distinguished between planes
by painting them different colors" (The Cubist Epoch,
London, 1995, p. 256).Certain qualities characterize
Laurens' syntax. First is his singular emphasis on color
as a means of introducing light, as the artist explained.
Next is his meticulous attention to the application of
polychromatic effects. Third is the lack of emphasis on
the found qualities of his materials. Laurens described
his process: "Essentially sculpture means taking
possession of a space, the construction of an object by
means of hollows and volumes, fullness and voids:
their alternations, their contrasts, their constant and
reciprocal tension, and in final form, their equilibrium"
(quoted in C. Ritchie, Sculpture of the Twentieth
Century, New York, 1953, p. 43). With these
techniques, Laurens expanded the practice of Cubist
sculpture: "In opening the spaces more consistently,
more forcefully, Laurens pushed Picasso's experiments

one step further. Laurens' inner volumes are more

significant as places than their outer shells. Shadows
are more important, accentuating emptiness as mass.
Painted components are neither descriptive nor
decorative but emphasize fragmented volume" (M.
Rowell, The Planar Dimension, exh. cat., Solomon R.
Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1979, pp. 2-3).
Earning the admiration of critics and artists alike,
Laurens' cubist oeuvre was featured at the prominent
art dealer Lonce Rosenberg's Galerie d'Effort
Moderne in solo exhibitions in 1918 and 1919. Today
the artist is considered as one of the preeminent cubist
sculptors. Giacometti once wrote of Laurens: "Laurens
is one of the very rare sculptors who render what I
experience in front of living reality, and that is why I find
a likeness in his sculpture, a likeness that gives me a
reason to love and admire it" (quoted in D. Cooper, op.
cit., p. 262). Construction's first owner was the
discerning art collector Jacques Zoubaloff, who in
addition to collecting important modern works by
Picasso, Braque, Lger, Gris, and Joseph Csaky,
donated much of his holdings to Parisian institutions in
the 1920s. (fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Guitare, after March
1914. Sheet metal and wire. The Museum of Modern
Art, New York.
Provenance
Jacques Zoubaloff, Paris; sale, Htel Drouot, Paris, 28
November 1935, lot 200.Jean Le Bec, Neuilly-surSeine. Private collection, Neuilly-sur-Seine (by descent
from the above); sale, Artcurial, Paris, 20 October
2007, lot 8.Acquired at the above sale by the present
owner.
Exhibited
Paris, Muse national d'Art Moderne, Le cubisme,
1907-1914, January-April 1953 (dated 1919).
Kunsthaus Zurich, Henri Laurens. Skupturen,
Collagen, Zeichnungen, July-August 1961, no. 65
(dated 1919).Paris, Muse national d'Art Moderne,
Henri Laurens. Le Cubisme. Constructions et papiers
colls. 1915-1919, December 1985-February 1986, p.
78, no. 19 (illustrated; dated 1919).
Henri Laurens (1885-1954)
Le grand adieu
signed with initials, numbered and stamped with
foundry mark 'HL 0/5 Valsuani Cire Perdue' (on the
back of the right foot)bronze with brown patina
Height: 28 in. (70 cm.) Conceived in 1941
Considered to be one of Laurens' most accomplished
works of this period, Le grand adieu is a powerful study
of the human life cycle in feminine form, a subject to
which Laurens dedicated a good part of his career.
Following his Cubist period, Laurens returned in 1919
to carving sculpture in the round and began to draw
upon and rethink the French modernist traditions of the
female nude, which Giacometti described as "all the
while, evoking a re-invented human figure" (Alberto
Giacometti, "Henri Laurens: un sculpteur vu par un
sculpteur" in Labyrinthe, Geneva, 1945, p. 3). Le grand
adieu, a womanly yet embryonic figure sits with her
head and limbs turned inward, wrapped around loss;
the turning of her limbs suggests an attempt to shield
2

the cradled child, or to bid a last farewell, the adieu of

the title. "The Farewell thus comes to mean
encompassing life once again as a whole and returning
to its origins." (D.H. Kahnweiler and W. Hofmann, op.
cit., p. 28). Laurens visualized her form as if she were
a large fruit. He observed in 1952, "When forms arrive
at their maturity, their fullness, light will fall on them of
its own accord, just as it falls on a ripe piece of fruit in a
'garden'" (quoted in Henri Laurens, 1885-1954, exh.
cat., Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1971, p.
10). Laurens conceived Le grand adieu during the
German occupation of France. After attacks by the
French collaborationist press, the artist was unable to
exhibit, and until the liberation he led a quiet life,
making sculpture that was at once a reflection of the
tragedy and crisis of World War II as well as his own
return to the world of the subconscious and sensual.
As in other works from this period, such as Groupe de
Sirens, 1938, La Dormeuse, 1943, and Le Matin, 1944,
which were all cast in postures of repose, sinking, and
falling that referred to the collapse of France, Le grand
adieu rebels against oppression as metaphors of the
unbowed spirit. Monumental in conception, the
biomorphic forms of this sculpture are at once
architectonic and sensual: "The body is not only a
paradigm of sitting and of self-sufficient massiveness; it
is an image of the organic profusion of life, in which
forces of growth and preservation balance each other."
(D.H. Kahnweiler and W. Hofmann, op. cit., p. 27). This
compelling work is an outstanding example of Lauren's
figural practice of the 1930s and 1940s, an
authoritative presentation of metaphor and form.
Werner Hofmann has written, "Nowhere in the history
of sculpture is there a body whose weight rests on the
earth more fully, heavily and pregnantly" (ibid.). The
curvilinear lines of Le grand adieu compose an organic
and ripe vision, a symbiotic whole reflecting fertility,
metamorphosis, and growth, while at the same time, it
conveys a profound feeling of sorrow in the ultimate
fate of all living things. "It is an image of the organic
profusion of life... of this vitality is directed toward
fulfillment, an equalized form representing summation"
(ibid.).Laurens also produced versions of L'adieu in
marble and terracotta.
Provenance
Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris. Acquired from the above
by the present owner, 1982.
Literature
D.H. Kahnweiler and W. Hofmann, The Sculpture of
Henri Laurens, New York, 1970, pp. 27-28 and 219
(another cast illustrated, pls. 186-187). S. Kuthy, ed.,
Henri Laurens, Bern, 1985, p. 147 (marble version
illustrated, p. 146).

Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)

Flore
stamped with monogram 'M' (on the top of the
base); stamped with foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier.
Fondeur Paris' (on the back of the base)

bronze with black and green patina

Height: 64 in. (162.6 cm.)
Cast in the artist's lifetime
Olivier Lorquin has confirmed the authenticity of
this sculpture.
This gracefully sensual sculpture is Maillol's tribute to
Flora, the ancient Roman goddess of spring and
flowers, in the definitive version that he completed in
1910 and shown in the Salon d'Automne that year. It is
closely related to the sculpture of the same title, one in
a quartet of life-size sculptures representing the
seasons, which Maillol created to fulfill a commission
from the Russian collector Ivan Morosov for his villa in
Moscow; please see the note for Maillol's L'Et, lot 15
in this catalogue.
Maurice Denis summed up Maillol's vision of the
female figure: "Maillol strives to create forms of perfect
beauty and simplicity" (quoted in J. Rewald, op. cit.,
1939, p. 161). Maillol has depicted his Flore in a fulllength dress of a clinging and diaphanous fabric; the
subtle contraposto in her formal, ritualistic stance
recalls the stately temple caryatids of ancient Greece.
According to Linda K. Kramer, "Flora nevertheless
contains something of a young woman from Banyuls.
Her head is based on that of young girl Maillol saw on
the street, which he modeled in clay as she passed by
(op. cit., 2000, p. 157). Flore is a key sculpture in
Maillol's efforts to fuse earthly sensuality with the
formal stylistic motifs of the ancient world and his
Mediterranean heritage. Roger Fry commented, "Flora
has a rustic simplicity and bluntness of form which is
quite distinct from the aristocratic perfection of the
Greek." (Roger Fry, "The Sculptures of Maillol" in The
Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 17, no. 85,
April 1910, p. 31).
An appealing figure of allegorical and metaphorical
power, erotic suggestiveness and beauty, Flora was a
popular subject in antique Greco-Roman art and
poetry, most characteristically in the Roman poet
Ovid's Fasti: "As she talks, her lips breathe spring
roses: I was Chloris, who am now called Flora." (Ovid,
Fasti, v. 194-195). The ancient Roman festival of
Floralia honored the divinity from late April to early
May, a tradition which later became manifest in May
Day celebrations. The Floralia theatre and games were
both enjoyed by many, while decried by some for their
extreme licentiousness. A more dignified, metaphorical
but still classically informed ideal of Flora entered into
later European historical and aesthetic consciousness.
Flora frequently appears in renaissance, baroque and
neo-classical art and literature, one of the best-known
examples being Sandro Botticelli's mural La Primavera,
1477-1482, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Representing the natural world, springtime,
regeneration and fecundity, Flora was a favorite
allegorical subject for many artists, who took her to
represent the beneficence of creativity. Maillol
envisioned in her attributes a conception of woman as
the very embodiment of nature in its totality. Octave
Mirbeau wrote in 1905, "the woman of Maillol's creation
is always chaste, full of ardour, and magnificent. She
3

can give us the conception of strength, of the

perfection of the human body, because she presents
us with the conception of life, because she is life itself.
She is woman created by Maillol; she is his
contribution to the sculpture of today. This new
treasure of admirable, living forms is offered by a great,
virile and sensitive artist to the art of France and of the
world" (quoted in J. Rewald, op. cit., 1939, p. 22).
Provenance
Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the previous owner, 1
November 1991.
Property from the Collection of John W. Kluge Sold to
Benefit Columbia University
Literature
J. Rewald, Maillol, London, 1939, pp. 68-69 (another
cast illustrated, dated 1912).
W. George, Aristide Maillol, London, 1965, p. 166
(another cast illustrated).
W. George, Aristide Maillol, Collection des grandes
monographies, Neuchatel, 1977, p. 167 (another cast
illustrated).
B. Lorquin, Aristide Maillol, London, 1995, p. 50
(another version illustrated).
L. Kramer, Aristide Maillol (1861-1944): Pioneer of
Modern Sculpture, Ph.D., diss., New York University,
2000, pp. 154-159.
Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)
Monument Port-Vendres
inscribed with monogram (on the top of the base);
inscribed with foundry mark and numbered 'E.
GODARD Fondeur PARIS 4/6' (on the side of the
base)
lead
Length: 85 in. (215.9 cm.)
Conceived in 1921 and cast circa 1975
Olivier Lorquin has confirmed the authenticity of
this sculpture.
Following World War I, the villages of Elne, Cret and
Port-Vendres commissioned Maillol to produce
memorials for the war dead. The artist created a
variation of the mythological Pomona figure for Elne in
1922 and a seated bronze figure Grief for Cret in
1923. The same year, Maillol submitted a maquette for
the present sculpture to the mayor of Port-Vendres.
The sculpture was summarily rejected as the mayor's
wife objected to the figure's sensuous nudity.
Aggrieved, Maillol nevertheless submitted a draped
reclining figure similar to the beautiful classical
odalisque Monument Czanne, 1912-1925, a project
he had been reworking and rethinking for many years,
creatively expanding on themes of the modernist
bather and incorporating various classical influences.
This revised clothed version of Monument PortVendres was happily accepted, and the artist began
work on the stone version of the present sculpture.
Today a cast lead version is on view in Port-Vendres.
Monument Port-Vendres is a regal and somber
classical figure, yet it retains the quiet sensuality for

which Maillol is so well known. Lorquin has observed:

"Maillol chose a silent image to express the tragedy of
a nation's youth being sacrificed in battle. Thus, when
the town of Port-Vendres commissioned him to sculpt a
monument to the war dead, he returned to the theme
of the recumbent female figure he had been working
on for several years" (op. cit., p. 83).
Maillol described the figure of Monument PortVendres as Venus giving a palm frond to the deceased
soldiers. The light transparent drapery is based on the
clinging effect of the dampened clothes wrapped
around clay figures in the studio. The artist molded the
figure first and then would work on the folds of cloth,
sensitively creating volumes of elegant drapery. The
stylized proportions of the body are informed by the
proto-classical traditions of French Renaissance artists
such as Jean Goujoun, Germain Pilon and Benvenuto
Cellini whose funerary monuments and objects share
the same elongated proportions, strong modeling,
svelte thin bodies, restrained heraldic gestures and
somber facial expressions.
Monument Port-Vendres also reflects Maillol's
interest in the antique statuary of ancient Greece and
Rome. A 1908 trip to Greece with patron Count Harry
Kessler included visits to Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius and
Athens. Rewald describes the effect of trip on Maillol:
"To him the marvels of Greece were not merely
witnesses of a glorious period of sculpture; he divined
with intensity the living spirit which still animates their
beauty" (op. cit., p. 17). The artist was inspired by the
sculpture of the Parthenon, and particularly the
caryatids of the Erechteum and the Propylaea and held
a special admiration for the work of Olympus: "It is the
most beautiful thing I have seen; it is more beautiful
than anything else in the world. It is an art of synthesis,
a higher art than ours to-day which seeks to represent
the human flesh" (quoted in ibid.).
Maillol's friend the poet Marc Lafarge observed in 1925
of Maillol's classical archaism: "Having broken away
from Impressionism, Maillol has returned to the primary
rules of his art, in the same way as the Provenal Artist
has returned to those of painting. He has understood
once again the value of design and the nobility of
posture, while suppressing all narrative interest. He is
to sculpture what Czanne was to painting" (ibid., p.
162).
Provenance
Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris.
Property from the Collection of John W. Kluge Sold to
Benefit Columbia University
Literature
J. Rewald, Maillol, Paris, 1939, p. 166 (stone version
illustrated, p. 88).
W. George, Aristide Maillol et l'me de la sculpture,
Paris, 1977, p. 170, no. 178 (bronze version illustrated,
p. 178).
B. Lorquin, Aristide Maillol, London, 1995, p. 83
(another cast illustrated in color, p. 83).
4

Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)

L'Et
signed 'A. Maillol' (on the front of the base);
inscribed with foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier
Fondeur Paris' (on the back of the base)bronze
with dark brown patina Height: 65 in. (162.6 cm.)
Conceived in 1910-1911; this bronze version cast
by June 1952
Olivier Lorquin has confirmed the authenticity of
this sculpture.
L'Et belongs to a group of four life-size female figures
that Maillol created between 1910 and 1912 for the
renowned Russian art collector, Ivan Morosov.
Commissioned to adorn the corners of a neoclassical
music room in Morosov's Moscow villa, the quartet
consists of the present work, an abundant
representation of summer; a lithe, adolescent allegory
of spring; Flora (see lot 72), the Roman goddess of
vernal blossoming; and Pomona, the Roman goddess
of fruit trees (fig. 1). Although commonly known as Les
Saisons, suggesting the traditional allegorical depiction
of the four seasons, Linda Kramer has asserted that
the sculptures should be seen more specifically as a
response to the suite of murals depicting the myth of
Psyche that Maurice Denis painted for Morosov's room
in 1906. Echoing Psyche's mythical transformation
from human to immortal, the sculptures, according to
Kramer, can be divided into two pairs of women, each
pair juxtaposing mortal and divine beauty. Further
explicating this theme, she wrote: "The fragile
blossoms of spring are more likely to have been
portrayed by the delicate Flora, the Roman goddess of
that flowering season, and by the slim adolescent
mortal, Spring. The fullness of the harvest seems more
suited to Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees,
and the voluptuous figure of Summer [the present
sculpture], a ripe young woman at the height of
fecundity. In either case... these figures represent the
luscious flowering beauty that Maillol found the most
attractive aspect of both young women and nature,
while also offering him the opportunity to associate his
ideal of feminine beauty with that of goddesses"
(Aristide Maillol: Pioneer of Modern Sculpture, Institute
of Fine Arts, New York University, doctoral dissertation,
2000, pp. 155-156). Maillol's thematic fusion of divine
and mortal beauty in Les Saisons also mirrors his
artistic process at the turn of the century; his mix of
direct observation from nature with a selective adoption
of formal conventions from classical antiquity is
particularly evident in the pairing of L'Et and Pomone.
Both statues were modeled in part after young Catalan
women from the artist's native Banyuls, but their rigid
poses, voluptuous curves, and marked contraposto
highlight the sculptor's highly stylized and individual
incorporation of ancient art into his oeuvre. The
sculptor had been an avid student of ancient Greek
and Egyptian forms since 1907, visiting the classical
galleries at the Louvre and producing works such as
brightly colored faence vases that he decorated with
dancing figures draped in clothing reminiscent of the
classicizing costumes worn by the American dancer
Isadora Duncan. Most importantly, Maillol
accompanied Count Henry Kessler to Greece and Italy

in the spring of 1908, where the two men explored

ruins at sites including Delphi, Olympia, Athens, and
Pompeii. The trip affirmed Maillol's conviction that the
culture of ancient Greece was his rightful artistic
inheritance, the proof of which he located in the
landscape itself. Remarking on the topographic
similarities between southern France and Greece,
Maillol wrote: "On arriving, I thought I had rediscovered
Banyuls! There were the same houses, the same
windmill. I ascertained that my country had the same
design as Greece. When going to Delphi we
descended to Itea, I thought I was seeing the Bay of
Banyuls and its mountains, larger, but with similar
graceful contours" (quoted in ibid., p. 148). As L'Et
and Pomone demonstrate, Maillol's espousal of ancient
Greek stylistic attributes is more a loose interpretation
of classicizing elements than a faithful rendering of
historical reality. Both sculptures depict fertile young
women. However, the sculptor differentiates between
deity and mortal by giving the goddess Pomona a
rigidly frontal figure reminiscent of an archaic Greek
kore; her gesture of offering an apple in each hand,
which symbolizes the fecundity of both earth and
women, visually recalls the closed, symmetrical forms
of ancient Hellenic and Egyptian sculptures. By
contrast L'Et's rounded hip, open stance, and tilted
head lend her figure a higher degree of realism and
thus are more suggestive of living mortal flesh. In both
cases, the figure's nudity and bent right knee defy the
sculptural conventions that the sculptor would have
encountered firsthand in his travels with Kessler; the
archaizing elements reinforce Maillol's interpretation of
antique sculpture as an inheritance to be appropriated
and adapted into a modern French style. His standard
of historical authenticity evolved from a nostalgic
relationship with this cultural heritage, as evidenced by
his creation of a fragmented "relic" of L'Et without
head or arms (fig. 2). This torso was perhaps an effort
to test the "accuracy" of his work by executing it as a
convincing artifact before realizing the final version.
The beautifully fleshy curves and gentle pose of the
present nude also made an impression on Renoir, who
began work on his similar Venus Victrix (fig. 3) as a
freestanding sculpture and in a relief (1914; Muse
d'Orsay, Paris) shortly after Maillol completed Les
Saisons. Renoir reversed the position of the arms,
placing the goddess' discarded robes in her left hand
and the apple, the sign of her victory, in the right. Thus
positioned, she adopts the guise of a bather, one of the
chief themes in Renoir's oeuvre. Maillol took inspiration
from Renoir for his own treatment of the nude. For his
part, Renoir demonstrated his admiration for his friend
Maillol by purchasing his decorative works, including a
ceramic indoor fountain surrounded by nudes in 1902,
and posing for a portrait bust in 1906, in the process of
which Renoir observed with fascination Maillol's skill in
modeling from life. When Renoir, crippled with
rheumatoid arthritis, searched for a pair of able hands
to execute sculptures under his direction, Maillol
recommended his own assistant, Richard Guino, thus
establishing a stylistic bridge between the two elder
sculptors. Maillol also advised the young sculptor,
Louis Morel, who would later become Renoir's second
sculptural assistant, to "look at Renoir's nudes: that's
sculpture. You need look no farther" (quoted in ibid., p.
5

165). Indeed, Maillol and Renoir shared a close and

mutually influential artistic relationship, which once
prompted Renoir to exclaim: "Maillol is one of the
world's greatest sculptors. If the word genius, which is
so often misapplied today, has any meaning, this is it.
Yes, Maillol is a genius, and one would have to be
either a fool or a charlatan not to recognize it" (quoted
in W. George, Aristide Maillol, Neuchtel, 1965, p.
213).(fig. 1) Maillol, Pomone, 1910-1912. The Pushkin
Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Barcode: 28171751(fig.
2) Maillol, Le torse de l'Et, 1910-1912, location
unknown. Barcode: 28501503(fig. 3) Renoir, Venus
Victrix, 1913-1915, Muse des Beaux-Arts de la Ville
de Paris, Petit Palais, Paris.
Provenance
Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris. Acquired from the above by
the previous owner, 1 November 1991.

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910)

Bords de la Marne (Paysage)
signed Henri Rousseau (lower left)
oil on canvas
15 1/8 x 20 in. (38.4 x 51.4 cm.)
Painted in 1906

foliage. Rousseaus use of painterly sfumato lends a mystical

aura of stillness and quietude to this scene, yet typically he
introduces enlivening touches of human presence and activity,
showing barge traffic on the Marne and a small, almost toy-like
railway train making its way along the riverbank. Henry Certigny
in his catalogue raisonn reproduces a postcard that was likely
the source of inspiration for this scene, showing the north face
Rousseaus contribution to the poetry of the modernist idiom of the chteau viewed from the Marne and the railroad (fig.1).
was acknowledged in his own time: he had many admirers This process of copying and borrowing was an important part of
among avant-garde artists of his day, including Robert
Rousseaus artistic and imaginative practice. His pictures were
Delaunay and Pablo Picasso, who held a banquet in the artists
often assembled additively from individual motifs and other
honor. Wassily Kandinsky who featured Rousseaus works in pictorial ingredients, resulting in compositions that reconstruct
Der Blaue Reiter, championed the freshness of Rousseaus visible reality rather than reproduce it Rousseau taught
childlike vision, and was desperate to buy a rural landscape modern
in
artists how to construct the unknown from known
1911. (quoted in French Landscapes, Henri Rousseau,
components (Bttner, op. cit., 2010, p. 39).
Jungles in Paris, exh. cat., The National Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC, 2006, p.126). Picasso explained, RousseauThe emphatic horizontal line of the riverbank anchors the
is not an accident. He represents the perfection of a certain composition, slightly skewed at the right hand side, echoing the
order of thought. The first of the Douaniers works that I had slope of the hillside above. Rousseaus friend the collector and
the opportunity of acquiring took hold of me with the force of gallerist Joseph Brummerthe first owner of the painting, and
obsession. (quoted in R. Shattuck, The Banquet Years, The the subject of a 1909 portrait (Vallier, no. 224; Kunstmuseum,
Origins of the Avant Garde in France, 1885 to World War I, Basel)lived next door and frequently observed the artist at
1955, p.66).
work in his studio in the Rue Perrel. He describes Rousseaus
approach: He would begin by dividing the canvas into a pattern
of spaces by a few simple lines, and he would then, with a tiny
Landscapes constitute by far the largest number of the
Rousseaus paintings. The great imaginary jungle landscapespointed brush meticulously finish one item after another within
these spaces, beginning at the top and working his way
for which Rousseau is most famous present a dense and
downwards just as if he were writing a story, pen in hand
impenetrable world in which half-hidden and mysterious dramas
unfold. His suburban and rural landscapes, on the other hand,(quoted in A. Richter, Two Reviews of the Henry Rousseau
show a world that is entirely open to the viewers gaze, with Exhibition, College Art Journal, vol.1, May 1942, p. 107).
wide spaces and distant vistas under large and mainly cloudless
skies. Anyone familiar with Henri Rousseaus well-known In a statement for a biographical profile published in 1894,
Rousseau wrote in the third person how He has perfected
jungle pictures is likely to be amazed when first confronted with
one of the artists small-format paintings of his native Francehimself more and more in the original manner which he has
adopted and he is in the process of becoming one of our best
(Bttner, Across the Park and into the Trees: The Visual
realist painters (quoted in R. Shattuck, op. cit, 1968, p. 55).
Context of Henri Rousseaus Landscapes and Figure Paintings
Rousseaus realism is an intensely felt literalness, in which he
in Henry Rousseau, Henry Rousseau, exh.cat., Beyeler
reveals the essential character of his subjects. The critic
Museum, Basel, 2010, p. 33).
Gustave Coquiot, one of the artists earliest supporters, wrote
that Rousseau possessed such style, such inventiveness, such
Rousseau made free oil sketches from nature during his
a deployment of rare qualities: and above all he offers such a
amblings around Paris and its suburbs, but many of his
landscape paintings were composed in obsessive detail in hislove, such personal generosity, such a gift of his naked heart,
studio. In the present picture, Rousseau has chosen a view ofsuch absence of falsehood, of insincerity, that we can rightly
the Chteau de Damery-Boursault, built in the 19th-century byspeak of Rousseaus contribution to painting as both generous
and unique (quoted in Henri Rousseau, exh. cat., The Museum
Mme Cliquot, of the famous family of vintners. From a series of
of Modern Art, New York, 1985, p. 37).
pictures representing the Four Seasons (Vallier, nos. 186-189;
see Christies New York Day Sale, 2 November 2011) Rousseau
depicts autumn along the banks of the Marne River, with a
golden late afternoon light cast over rich yellow and orange