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Lot Essay
The bather fixing her hair is a timeless subject that has inspired artists for centuries. Women’s hair, and the intimate feminine ritual of caring for it, has carried strong sensual and erotic connotations through the ages. From Titian's La femme au miroir to Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Le bain turc, both of which Aristide Maillol would have seen at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, as well as Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s renderings of the subject, there was lots of material for Maillol to draw from on the topic at the turn of the previous century.
The figure of the Baigneuse debout se coiffant first appeared in Maillol’s oeuvre as early as 1898, not long after he turned his attention from tapestries—for which he had gained recognition in the early 1890s—to sculpture. During the late 1920s, the renowned Danish patron Johannes Rump asked Maillol to conceive another version of his original 1898 form, resulting in the conception of the present work. Rump’s collection—including his Baigneuse debout se coiffant—was later gifted to Copenhagen's Statens Museum for Kunst. Following this commission and its success, Maillol chose to enlarge the work and one of these larger examples is displayed in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.
The figure of the Baigneuse debout se coiffant first appeared in Maillol’s oeuvre as early as 1898, not long after he turned his attention from tapestries—for which he had gained recognition in the early 1890s—to sculpture. During the late 1920s, the renowned Danish patron Johannes Rump asked Maillol to conceive another version of his original 1898 form, resulting in the conception of the present work. Rump’s collection—including his Baigneuse debout se coiffant—was later gifted to Copenhagen's Statens Museum for Kunst. Following this commission and its success, Maillol chose to enlarge the work and one of these larger examples is displayed in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.