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Lot Essay
A photocertificate from Dina Vierny numbered 2505 and dated Paris, le 5 décembre accompanies this sculpture.
Maillol's subjects so often begin with the female torso, a primordial and original shape which the sculptor could, it always appears, so easily have brought to life by adding limbs.
As much in her proportions as in the expression on her face, La Jeunesse resonates with two other major works of the same period, Flore and L'Ile de France, and was exhibited for the first time in the Salon d'Automne of 1910. Maillol confided to his friend Henri Frére that he had been exact and faithful to the figure of the pretty young woman who had served as his model (H. Frére, Conversations de Maillol, 1956, p.138).
Maillol, however, unlike so many of his contemporaries, also often worked without a model. This was no doubt in part due to the difficulty Maillol would have encountered trying to find a young model in the early years of his career. In his native Banyuls it would have been unthinkable for a girl to pose nude for an artist. And the jealousy of his wife would not have simplified his predicament. Maillol, however, had superb visual recall, and of course a great number of drawings in his studio, to compensate for the lack of life studies in his own atelier. So he made his life drawings live, noting the everyday and routine gestures and studying the natural postures of young women around him. These sketches served as snapshots for the sculptor and he drew constantly-in his studio, at the seaside, and when he travelled. As Count Kessler recalled, 'I left for London at 9:15 with Maillol. He drew and made observations ceaselessly; for example, the young English woman whose neck he conceived as resembling a Karyatid. 'And this helps me with my sculpting,' He insisted that that he could more easily make sculptures without live models than he possibly could without drawing' (cited in French in U. Berger, 'Maillol sculpteur' in Aristide Maillol, exh. cat., Lausanne, 1996, p.42).
La Jeunesse, like so many of Maillol's finished sculptures, exists whole and in fragments in the numerous drawings and studies that were integrated during the modelling process that culminated in this bronze. Each study experiments with pose and gesture; each drawing tests the balance, poise, rigor and tenderness of the individual elements and they are all brought together in the artist's finished harmonious vision of youth, promise and feminine grace.
Maillol's subjects so often begin with the female torso, a primordial and original shape which the sculptor could, it always appears, so easily have brought to life by adding limbs.
As much in her proportions as in the expression on her face, La Jeunesse resonates with two other major works of the same period, Flore and L'Ile de France, and was exhibited for the first time in the Salon d'Automne of 1910. Maillol confided to his friend Henri Frére that he had been exact and faithful to the figure of the pretty young woman who had served as his model (H. Frére, Conversations de Maillol, 1956, p.138).
Maillol, however, unlike so many of his contemporaries, also often worked without a model. This was no doubt in part due to the difficulty Maillol would have encountered trying to find a young model in the early years of his career. In his native Banyuls it would have been unthinkable for a girl to pose nude for an artist. And the jealousy of his wife would not have simplified his predicament. Maillol, however, had superb visual recall, and of course a great number of drawings in his studio, to compensate for the lack of life studies in his own atelier. So he made his life drawings live, noting the everyday and routine gestures and studying the natural postures of young women around him. These sketches served as snapshots for the sculptor and he drew constantly-in his studio, at the seaside, and when he travelled. As Count Kessler recalled, 'I left for London at 9:15 with Maillol. He drew and made observations ceaselessly; for example, the young English woman whose neck he conceived as resembling a Karyatid. 'And this helps me with my sculpting,' He insisted that that he could more easily make sculptures without live models than he possibly could without drawing' (cited in French in U. Berger, 'Maillol sculpteur' in Aristide Maillol, exh. cat., Lausanne, 1996, p.42).
La Jeunesse, like so many of Maillol's finished sculptures, exists whole and in fragments in the numerous drawings and studies that were integrated during the modelling process that culminated in this bronze. Each study experiments with pose and gesture; each drawing tests the balance, poise, rigor and tenderness of the individual elements and they are all brought together in the artist's finished harmonious vision of youth, promise and feminine grace.