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Lot Essay
Bertrand Lorquin wrote with regard to Torse de Vénus:
This torso, which dates from the year 1918, is a work of art in itself. It is perhaps one of the most accomplished pieces of sculpture in his entire oeuvre. As Waldemar Georges puts it, Maillol's torsos ". . . are organisms and are perhaps more complete than anatomies which imitate nature with its flaws, failings, and imperfections." While visting the Louvre with Count Kessler one day, Maillol stopped in front of a statue of Venus which had lain in the sea off the coast of Africa for so long that its details had been rounded and simplified by the action of waves. Turning to his patron, the sculptor explained, "This figure shows me what is the essential plastic quality of a work of art. A sculpture must be beautiful even after the original surface has been lost and it has been worn down like a sea shell. This means that the essence of beauty endures all the same when one is in the presence of a true sculpture which possesses this miracle of harmony between the masses" (B. Lorquin, Aristide Maillol, 1995, pp. 107 and 111).
This torso, which dates from the year 1918, is a work of art in itself. It is perhaps one of the most accomplished pieces of sculpture in his entire oeuvre. As Waldemar Georges puts it, Maillol's torsos ". . . are organisms and are perhaps more complete than anatomies which imitate nature with its flaws, failings, and imperfections." While visting the Louvre with Count Kessler one day, Maillol stopped in front of a statue of Venus which had lain in the sea off the coast of Africa for so long that its details had been rounded and simplified by the action of waves. Turning to his patron, the sculptor explained, "This figure shows me what is the essential plastic quality of a work of art. A sculpture must be beautiful even after the original surface has been lost and it has been worn down like a sea shell. This means that the essence of beauty endures all the same when one is in the presence of a true sculpture which possesses this miracle of harmony between the masses" (B. Lorquin, Aristide Maillol, 1995, pp. 107 and 111).