About this lot

Description

carved marble 60cm high

Footnote: Recalling the Pygmalion tradition, Alfred Boucher’s, La Baigneuse , is a paradox; its form both constrained by, and liberated from, its medium. The female nude, delicate and supple, sits atop, and in stark juxtaposition with, the faceted marble base she was conceived from. Whereas the base is rough and ragged with a granular, almost chalky finish, the vitality of the nude figure, with the suggestion of clavicles, ribs, and hipbones, and hints of flesh, tendons and musculature, demonstrates the versatility of the medium and the capability of the artist to bring stone to life. Boucher created several iterations of this form, the most famous of which is titled L'Hirondelle Blessée , or The Wounded Swallow, and was exhibited at The Salon of 1898, where it received widespread praise. Whilst La Baigneuse and L'Hirondelle Blessée share an almost identical composition, featuring a female nude, her hair scraped into a chignon and her gaze directed at her left foot, which she holds at a right angle just above the ankle, L'Hirondelle Blessée includes the addition of an oversized pair of wings. Said to be the embodiment of elegance and grace, this version was used as the model of Damien Hirst’s 2008 sculpture Anatomy of an Angel . Rather than hinting at the anatomy, Hirst’s version, which shows an anatomical cross-section of the figure, rendering bones, organs, vasculature, and musculature in Carrara marble, is explicit. Anatomy of an Angel was sold by Sotheby’s in 2008 for £1,071,650.

Condition report: Fully cleaned and with some restoration, she has been formally decapitated and restored.

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