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Lot Essay
This early repouss head displays all the consumate metal-working skills that won Gonzlez so many prizes for craftmanship and such esteem from his colleagues. Executed circa 1910-12, this lovingly crafted portrait head has been delicately beaten into its present shape from a single sheet of copper. With masterly control and great attention to the slightest of surface details, Gonzlez has wrought out of this soft metal a sensitive and somewhat impressionistic portrait.
Tte penche dates from the period of Gonzlez's brief first marriage to Jeanne Berton. Jeanne, the mother of Gonzlez's daughter Roberta, divorced Gonzlez after only three years of marriage in 1912, leaving Roberta with her father and his family. During most of this time, Gonzlez was separated from his mother and sisters who had returned to Barcelona. Gonzlez would continue to live with his mother and his two sisters, Pilar and Lola, for most of his life along with his companion and later second wife, Marie-Therese. Gonzlez's inclination towards using the women around him as the subjects of his sculpture is one of the central features of his oeuvre and considering the absence of his family during the period in which the present work was made it is very probable that this subtle and impressionistic repouss head is a rare portrait of Jeanne.
Tte penche dates from the period of Gonzlez's brief first marriage to Jeanne Berton. Jeanne, the mother of Gonzlez's daughter Roberta, divorced Gonzlez after only three years of marriage in 1912, leaving Roberta with her father and his family. During most of this time, Gonzlez was separated from his mother and sisters who had returned to Barcelona. Gonzlez would continue to live with his mother and his two sisters, Pilar and Lola, for most of his life along with his companion and later second wife, Marie-Therese. Gonzlez's inclination towards using the women around him as the subjects of his sculpture is one of the central features of his oeuvre and considering the absence of his family during the period in which the present work was made it is very probable that this subtle and impressionistic repouss head is a rare portrait of Jeanne.