Aimé-Jules Dalou

Private collection, United Kingdom

Another version of this rare terracotta by Dalou is housed in the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (inv. no. 54.187). It appears to be the earliest sculptural model that emerged from Dalou's studies of women reading, who included the sculptor's wife. In contrast to a later composition of a Liseuse who sits upright on a chair (Simier, op. cit., no. 300), the 1873 model is distinguished by the woman's elegant and informal pose, her head resting on her hand as, with a soft smile, she is visibly engrossed in her book. The present terracotta exhibits a beautiful crispness of modelling.

RELATED LITERATURE
European Painting and Sculpture, ca. 1770-1937, in the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Philadelphia, 1991, p. 137, no. 54; A. Simier, Jules Dalou: le sculpteur de la République, exh. cat. Petit Palais - Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris, Paris, 2013, pp. 366-370