Joseph-Antoine BERNARD (1866-1931) Young girl... Lot 939

Joseph-Antoine BERNARD (1866-1931) Young girl at her toilet, also known as Young girl sitting with her hair down Bronze with black patina Model created in 1912 Signed " J Bernard " on the back of the seat in the lower part Bears the founder's stamp Claude Valsuani Lost wax and numbered 16 on the back Size: H. 64,4 cm and terrace L.21,5 x W.17,9 cm S&C Provenance: private collection from Lyon Related work : -Joseph Bernard, Jeune fille à sa toilette, ou Jeune fille se coiffant assise, circa 1912, bronze, signed and stamped by the founder Alexis Rudier, H. 156 x57 x 56,5 cm, Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, n°inv. 1937-38. Bibliography : -René Jullian, Jean Bernard, Lucien Stoenesco, Pascale Grémont Gervaise, Joseph Bernard, Fondation de Coubertin, Saint-Rémy-Lès-Chevreuse, 1989, our copy mentioned in notice n°183, p.310. Related literature: - Paul Vitry, "L'exposition des Arts décoratifs modernes," in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Nov. 1925, pp.287- 300 ; - Luc Benoit, " Joseph Bernard (1866-1931) ", in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1932, vol 2, pp.217- 228 ; -Didier Chautant, Recherches sur la vie et l'oeuvre de Joseph Bernard 1866-1931 : sculpteur français, 1977, sn, n°151, p.66 et pp.70 -71 ; - Under the direction of Alice Massé and Sylvie Carlier, Joseph Bernard (1866-1931), de Pierre et de Volupté, catalog of the exhibition held at the Paul Dini Museum, Villefranche-sur-Saône and La Piscine-Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Roubaix, 2020, Soline Dusausoy, chapter "La Jeune fille à sa toilette", Editions Snoeck, Gand, 2020, pp.260-265. The theme of the young girl doing her hair has been treated many times by the Isère artist Joseph Bernard. This subject gives the artist the opportunity to work on the female body by sublimating its plastic canons through his refined and synthetic style. Close in composition to the Young Girl with her hair up and the Young Dancer, also known as the Young Girl with a drapery, the work presents a graceful and vibrant composition that won the admiration of the critics when the plaster model was presented at the Salon d'Automne in 1912; one can read this praise in the press: "{he achieves} the miracle of associating Greek rhythm with thick Egyptian grace, without ever departing from the most immediate modernism. (Tabarant, "Au Salon d'Automne," in Le Soir, October 9, 1912, p.2). The attitude of the young girl with her arm raised, the presence of the tightly pleated veil also suggests an inspiration from the Indian world. In his description of the sculptures presented at the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et des industries appliquées in 1925, Paul Vitry speaks for a public still charmed by this subject: "It is really in the work of this artist, which is similar in its plastic research in these famous pieces of Young Girl with a jug and Young Girl sitting with her arm raised to the art of Bourdelle and Maillol, of Despiau, that we find it seems -it the formula of the decorative sculpture the happiest and most complete that the Exhibition presents to us."After the presentation of the plaster model at the Salon d'Automne in 1912, two bronze editions were initiated, one on the original scale (H.: 157 cm, 5 copies to date), the other on a reduced scale (H.64 cm). Our bronze proof which corresponds to this small-scale state is n°16. The edition conducted by Valsuani originally planned 25 bronze proofs. The artist's catalog raisonné published in 1989 indicates, however, that the edition was limited to 18 copies.