Jaguar dévorant un lièvre

Details

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Jaguar dévorant un lièvre
signed with initials and numbered 'HM 4/10' and stamped with the foundry mark 'CIRE PERDUE C.VALSUANI' (on the base)
bronze with dark brown patina
22¼ in. (56.5 cm.) long.
Conceived between 1899-1901 and cast in a numbered edition of ten

Provenance

Mr & Mrs Theodor Ahrenberg, Stockholm; their sale, Sotheby's, London, 7 July 1960, lot 1, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

A. Barr, Matisse his art and his public, New York 1966, p.51 (another cast illustrated p.303).
J. Leymarie, H. Read, W. Liebeman, Henri Matisse, Los Angeles, 1966, no. 93. (another cast illustrated p.122).
A. E. Elsen, The Sculpture of Henri Matisse, New York, 1971, no.18 (another cast illustrated p.19).
L. Aragon, Henri Matisse, a novel, London, 1972, no. 39 (another cast illustrated p.81).
I. Monod-Fontaine, The Sculpture of Henri Matisse, London, 1984 (another cast illustrated p.52).
P. Schneider, Matisse, Great Britain, 1984, p. 542 (another cast illustrated).
D. Bozo, Dation Pierre Matisse, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1992, p. 17 (another cast illustrated p.19).
J. Elderfield, Henri Matisse: A Retrospective, New York, 1992, p.85 (another cast illustrated p.85).

Lot Essay

"Executed in 1899-1901, this is Matisse's first work in sculpture and is a free version of Barye's bronze Le Jaguar. He began it at the end of 1899, working for many months in the evening from eight to ten in the sculpture studio of the École de la Ville de Paris. He even got the body of a cat from a medical school and dissected it in order to study the muscles of the back and the claws." (A. E. Elsen, The sculpture of Henri Matisse, New York, 1971).

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