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Lot Essay
Dina Vierny has confirmed the authenticity of this sculpture.
During the early 1890s Maillol was most deeply involved with painting and making tapestries. He had carved some reliefs and statuettes in wood, but he did not turn to sculpture as his primary means of expression until an eye inflammation he contracted in 1898 caused him
to close his tapestry workshop. He modeled clothed and nude female figures in clay and terracotta, yielding detail to simplification of form and surface. He imbued his young female models (most frequently
his wife Clothilde) with a simple grace and charm which critics at first mistook for superficiality of temperament or want of a sophisticated technique.
The woodcarvings of Gauguin had an influence on Maillol's earliest reliefs, but by the late 1890s Maillol was seeking his inspiration
elsewhere. He admired the serene and static art of the Egyptians. He
was intrigued by Khmer sculpture he had seen in the Universal Expositions in Paris in 1889 and 1900. Gauguin had rejected the art of classical Greece, and although Maillol also had little interest in the naturalistic tradition of Greek sculpture at its peak, the primitivism of the earlier archaic period attracted him. However, it was not until his first visit to Greece in 1903 that he fully responded to the impact of Greek sculpture, and by then it served as more a confirmation of a path he had already taken rather than as a revelation of an unsuspected world of beauty. Maillol said, "I prefer the still primitive art of Olympus to that of the Parthenon...It is the most beautiful thing that I have seen; it is more beautiful than anything else in the world. It is an art of synthesis, a higher art than ours today, which seeks to represent the human flesh. If I had lived in the 6th century I should have found happiness in working with those men" (quoted in J. Rewald, Maillol, op. cit., p. 17).
Léda refers to the fables of ancient Greece. Leda was the wife of Tyndareus, King of Sparta, by whom she bore the mortal children Castor and Clytemnestra. The god Zeus visited her in the form of a swan; as a result of their union she gave birth to Pollux and Helen (later abducted by Paris to Troy), who were both immortal. One may imagine Leda seated near the water's edge as the swan draws close to her; she turns away and holds up her hand as if to ward off the god's affections. The use of myth, however, is actually a pretext for Maillol's treatment of the nude in this demure pose. John Rewald observed that:
To celebrate the human body, particularly the feminine
body, seems to have been Maillol's only aim. He did this
in a style from which all grandiloquence is absent, a
style almost earthbound and grave. The absence of movement,
however, is compensated by a tenderness and charm
distinctively his own; and while all agitation is foreign
to his art, there is in his work, especially in his small statuettes, such quiet grace and such warm feeling that they
never appear inanimate. He has achieved a peculiar balance
between a firmness of forms which appear eternal and a sensitivity of expression--even sensuousness--which seems forever quivering and alive (ibid., pp. 6-7).
During the early 1890s Maillol was most deeply involved with painting and making tapestries. He had carved some reliefs and statuettes in wood, but he did not turn to sculpture as his primary means of expression until an eye inflammation he contracted in 1898 caused him
to close his tapestry workshop. He modeled clothed and nude female figures in clay and terracotta, yielding detail to simplification of form and surface. He imbued his young female models (most frequently
his wife Clothilde) with a simple grace and charm which critics at first mistook for superficiality of temperament or want of a sophisticated technique.
The woodcarvings of Gauguin had an influence on Maillol's earliest reliefs, but by the late 1890s Maillol was seeking his inspiration
elsewhere. He admired the serene and static art of the Egyptians. He
was intrigued by Khmer sculpture he had seen in the Universal Expositions in Paris in 1889 and 1900. Gauguin had rejected the art of classical Greece, and although Maillol also had little interest in the naturalistic tradition of Greek sculpture at its peak, the primitivism of the earlier archaic period attracted him. However, it was not until his first visit to Greece in 1903 that he fully responded to the impact of Greek sculpture, and by then it served as more a confirmation of a path he had already taken rather than as a revelation of an unsuspected world of beauty. Maillol said, "I prefer the still primitive art of Olympus to that of the Parthenon...It is the most beautiful thing that I have seen; it is more beautiful than anything else in the world. It is an art of synthesis, a higher art than ours today, which seeks to represent the human flesh. If I had lived in the 6th century I should have found happiness in working with those men" (quoted in J. Rewald, Maillol, op. cit., p. 17).
Léda refers to the fables of ancient Greece. Leda was the wife of Tyndareus, King of Sparta, by whom she bore the mortal children Castor and Clytemnestra. The god Zeus visited her in the form of a swan; as a result of their union she gave birth to Pollux and Helen (later abducted by Paris to Troy), who were both immortal. One may imagine Leda seated near the water's edge as the swan draws close to her; she turns away and holds up her hand as if to ward off the god's affections. The use of myth, however, is actually a pretext for Maillol's treatment of the nude in this demure pose. John Rewald observed that:
To celebrate the human body, particularly the feminine
body, seems to have been Maillol's only aim. He did this
in a style from which all grandiloquence is absent, a
style almost earthbound and grave. The absence of movement,
however, is compensated by a tenderness and charm
distinctively his own; and while all agitation is foreign
to his art, there is in his work, especially in his small statuettes, such quiet grace and such warm feeling that they
never appear inanimate. He has achieved a peculiar balance
between a firmness of forms which appear eternal and a sensitivity of expression--even sensuousness--which seems forever quivering and alive (ibid., pp. 6-7).