19th Century European Art
19th Century European Art
Property of an Important Collector
Jean-Léon Gérôme
La Joueuse de Boules (The Ball Player)
Lot Closed
May 26, 06:14 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property of an Important Collector
Jean-Léon Gérôme
1824 - 1904
La Joueuse de Boules (The Ball Player)
signed JL GEROME and numbered M 808 and with the Sicot-Decauville Foundry Mark
gilt bronze
height 21 in.; 53.3cm.
Jean-Léon Gérôme first exhibited La Joueuse de Boules at the Salon of 1902. The composition depicts a woman in the midst of playing an invented Néo-Grec game in which she attempts to drop balls into the mouths of the grotesque masks at her feet. While the work was originally life-size, carved in marble, and tinted with pigments, the artist also executed the composition in polychrome ivory and in bronze. The bronze versions were edited in three sizes by the Siot-Decauville foundry, with the smallest measuring 11 inches tall and the largest measuring 34 1/2 inches tall.
RELATED LITERATURE:
G. Ackerman, The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, London and New York, 1986, p.326, no.S57;
L. des Cars, D. de Font-Reaulx, and E. Papet eds., The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme, Los Angeles, 2010, cat no. 191.