A BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED NUDE WOMAN BRAIDING HER HAIR
A BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED NUDE WOMAN BRAIDING HER HAIR
A BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED NUDE WOMAN BRAIDING HER HAIR
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A BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED NUDE WOMAN BRAIDING HER HAIR
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A BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED NUDE WOMAN BRAIDING HER HAIR

BARTHÉLEMY PRIEUR (C. 1536-1611), CIRCA 1600-1610

Details
A BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED NUDE WOMAN BRAIDING HER HAIR
BARTHÉLEMY PRIEUR (C. 1536-1611), CIRCA 1600-1610
On a rectangular molded ebonized wood base, inscribed in white paint '31289.39'
7 3/8 in. (18.7 cm.) high
Provenance
Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973) and Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955), New York, Redding, CT and Brookgreen Plantation, SC.
The Charleston Museum, Charleston, 1931 (acc. no. 1931.289.39), gifted by the above.
de-accessioned and sold; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 28 October 1967, lot 25, as Netherlandish Figure of Venus.
Peter Guggenheim (1927-2012) and John Abbott (1925-2020), New York and Warwick, NY, acquired at the above sale.
Their sale; Christie's, New York, 28 January 2015, lot 62.
Acquired at the above sale and now offered from the estate of the purchaser.
Literature
M. Schwartz, ed., European Sculpture from the Abbott Guggenheim Collection, New York, 2008, pp. 170-171, no. 90, illustrated, as Seated Nude Braiding her Hair.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
J. G. Mann, Wallace Collection Catalogues: Sculpture…, London, 1931, S 128, p. 48, plate 35.
W. Bode, The Italian Bronze Statuettes of the Renaissance, ed. and rev. by J. Draper, New York, 1980, p. 106, CCXV.
Musèe du Louvre, Les Bronzes de la Couronne, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1999 and 2001, p. 182, no. 321.
G. Bresc-Bautier, G. Scherf and J. Draper, eds., Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2009, pp. 102-147.
Exhibited
Charleston, Charleston Museum, Huntington Room, circa 1941.
San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Abbott Guggenheim Collection, 3 March-11 September 1988, pp. 170-171, no. 90, illustrated, as Seated Nude Braiding her Hair.
Special notice
On occasion, Christie's has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the sale of certain lots consigned for sale. This will usually be where it has guaranteed to the Seller that whatever the outcome of the auction, the Seller will receive a minimum sale price for the work. This is known as a minimum price guarantee. This is such a lot.

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Joshua Glazer
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Lot Essay

This bronze is, quite simply, Prieur, at his very best. The smooth, almost molten, surface glistens, the patina a gorgeous blend of milk-chocolate brown and copper and this is contrasted with the sharp, almost photographic, detail of the woman’s braids. The extended braid is also the great bravura moment of the sculpture as this thin thread of bronze is almost miraculous – both because of the technical difficulties when it was originally cast and the fact it has survived intact for well over 400 years. This bronze is also northern Mannerism at its most sophisticated: quiet, contemplative and exquisite without any theatricality or exaggeration.

Compositionally based on the ancient marble Nymph 'alla Spina’, Prieur’s Seated Nude Braiding Her Hair is one of a small number of elegant bronze statuettes of simple ‘genre’ subjects that have been successfully placed in the oeuvre of Henri IV’s court sculptor.

The model is known in other examples including the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, the Huntington Collection, San Marino, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Louvre and the Wallace Collection, London. Of these, the latter is considered the finest cast, and the present version is closely aligned in the detailed folds of the drapery, delicately rendered braided hair and facial features, contrasting with the expanses of smooth skin. However, present figure is more upright and less languid than the Wallace version, in which a slight tilt of the neck exaggerates the arch of the nude figure’s back.

Prieur first came to the attention of Henri IV when the King visited Sedan, in northern France, where Prieur was working in the autumn of 1591. After witnessing his talents, Henri IV soon entrusted Prieur with creating works intended to glorify him across Europe. The group of genre subjects Prieur created, virtually unique at that time, were first associated with each other by Bode and then Weihrauch, and later accredited to Prieur after comparison to his documented bronze allegories on the monument to Anne, duc de Montmorency, which was in the Parisian church of the Celestines. In particular the oval facial of Nude Woman Braiding Her Hair, with her high rounded forehead and long nose, is typical of Prieur.

André Le Nôtre, who created the gardens and park of both Vaux Le Vicomte and Versailles, owned a version of the bronze, and it appears in the 1693 inventory of his collection as ‘une femme assize quy trais ses cheveux’. Prieur’s great reputation as a small-scale bronze modeler and caster is based on the meticulous attention given to individual details which bring his simple, elegant compositions to life. In the present bronze the elongated individual fingers curl around the flowing locks of unbraiding hair and the little toe of her right foot gently lifts upwards, suggesting that the figure is sitting still, but that her hands and feet are in unconscious motion as she pauses, lost in thought.

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