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Lot n° 67

Aristide Maillol

Estimate :
50 000 - 70 000 EUR

Aristide Maillol Pomone à la Tunique 1921 Bronze. Height 89.5 cm. Signed 'A. MAILLOL' and the copy number, on the reverse of the plinth with the foundry mark ".Alexis Rudier. .Fondeur Paris.". Exemplar 1/6 - With greenish, in places golden-brown patina. We would like to thank Olivier Lorquin, Paris, for additional information. Provenance Christie's New York, auction November 8, 2000, lot 46; private ownership; Christie's New York, Impressionist And Modern Art Day Sale, November 7, 2007, lot 335; Kunsthaus Bühler, Stuttgart, acquired there in 2011; private collection Baden-Württemberg; since then in family ownership Exhibitions Cf. Baden-Baden 1978 (Staatliche Kunsthalle), Maillol, cat. no. 62 with illus. o.p. The statue of "Pomona", the Roman goddess of tree fruits and harvest blessings, was one of the first upright figures by the French sculptor Aristide Maillol. Created around 1908/09, the initially unclothed "Pomona" is the direct embodiment of fertility and ripeness thanks to her softly modeled, voluptuous forms and the apples on display. Inspired by Greek statues that Maillol had seen on his trip to Athens, Delphi and Olympia with his patron Harry Graf Kessler in 1908, he designed "Pomona" in a classical contrapposto, with one leg bent and one stretched out. A wreath of flowers on her head completes her stately appearance. The creation of the "Pomona" is closely linked to Maillol's first prestigious commission, the decoration of the neo-classical music salon of the famous Russian collector Ivan Abramovich Morozov. The latter had Maillol's painter friend Maurice Denis paint a cycle of paintings depicting the story of Psyche and asked the aspiring sculptor to add the four statues of "Pomona" and "Flora" as well as "Spring" and "Summer". As an old photograph of the music salon shows, the statues were completed around 1912. Maillol also exhibited the "Pomona" as a single figure, for example at the Paris Salon d'Automne in 1910, where it was enthusiastically received and launched his career as one of France's leading sculptors. At the beginning of the 1920s, Maillol - following his usual working practice - also took up the model of the "Pomona" again and varied it. He interpreted her either with lowered arms or dressed in a softly draped tunic, as is the case in the present version. Regardless of her attributes, Maillol created a statue of timeless beauty with "Pomona" that is extremely balanced and harmonious in terms of its proportions.

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