GEORGES MINNE (1866-1941) Lot n° 23

L'AGENOUILLÉ A LA FONTAINE Bronze Signed on the terrace Height: 79 cm Height: 31.1 in. Signed on the base, bronze Provenance - Private collection Exhibition - Gent: Museum Dr Guislain, Schaamtte, Honte, Shame, 2015 (this version was lent by our collector) This work will inspire the "Kneeling Fountain" (one of the bronze versions of which is kept at the Musée d'Orsay), presented for the first time at the "Libre esthétique" exhibition of 1899-five brothers who are only the reflections of the same image. This image of Narcissus, as Karel van de Woestyne admirably declared, is probably the masterpiece of Georges Minne. Bibliography - Schaamtte, Honte, Shame, cat. exp, Gent, Museum Dr. Guislain, 2015, our work is exhibited there and reproduced on page 17. - Robert Hooze, Monique Tahon-Vanroose, George Minne, en de kunst rond 1900, cat. exp, Gent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 18 september 1982 - 5 december 1982, similar version reproduced on page 148 under number 71. - Rêve et réalité : collections du Musée d'Orsay, cat. exp.., Kobé, Kobé Municipal Museum, 19 June - 29 August 1999; Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, 14 September - 12 December 1999, similar version reproduced on page 228 under number 127. Georges MINNE From 1882 to 1884, George Minne studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. At the age of twenty, he created his first sculptures: "Couple embracing" and "Mother mourning her dead child" (1886, private collection). Finding them devoid of academism, his master Louis Van Biesbroeck expresses his dissatisfaction. However, his innovative character, his restless nature and his sensitivity towards mysticism attracted the attention and admiration of Maurice Maeterlinck, with whom he formed a friendship, as well as with the circle of Symbolist poets such as Grégoire Le Roy, Charles van Lerberghe and Emile Verhaeren, for whom he illustrated several of their works from 1888 onwards