19th and 20th Century Sculpture
19th and 20th Century Sculpture
Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière
Phryne
Lot Closed
December 9, 01:25 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière
French
1831 - 1900
Phryne
stamped: A.N, numbered: 16 and entitled: ΨRYNH [sic]
bronze, dark brown patina, on an integral bronze base
84cm., 33in. overall
A decade before Gérôme turned his own hand to sculpture in 1878, he and his brother-in-law - the founder Adolphe Goupil - conceived the idea that the popular painting, Phryne Before the Areopagus, should be rendered in three dimensions. Goupil commissioned Falguière to model the figure, which he did using not only the painting, but also the many studies produced for it, including Nadar's two photographic prints of the model Marie-Christine Leroux.
The painting depicted the trial of Phryne, the famously beautiful courtesan of ancient Greece. Accused of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries, a capitol offence, she was brought before the Athenian judges. At the moment of sentencing, her advocate, the orator Hyperides, swept off the courtesan's clothes, revealing a body so beautiful that the judges were unable to condemn this divine-looking being to death.
Gérôme's painting, exhibited at the Salon in 1861, caused considerable controversy as Phryne, shielding her face with her arm, seems to shrink from the lascivious gaze of the multitude of male judges. It shocked the art world not only for its indecency, but for its modernity. The realism of Gérôme's nude affronted even the liberal novelist Émile Zola who saw in it 'a modern mistress caught changing into her nightdress'. It was caricatured and parodied in the press, but the painting was a runaway success. The sculptural version, which removes the unsettling reaction of the judges, is not so controversial, but focuses simply on the beauty of the goddess-like nude.
A recent study on Goupil and Gérôme by Florence Rionnet notes that versions of the bronze Phryne with the present square base on raised feet with the Greek cartouche resting on a palm are particularly rare.
RELATED LITERATURE
L. des Cars et. al., The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), exh. cat., The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2010, pp. 104-109, no. 47
The painting depicted the trial of Phryne, the famously beautiful courtesan of ancient Greece. Accused of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries, a capitol offence, she was brought before the Athenian judges. At the moment of sentencing, her advocate, the orator Hyperides, swept off the courtesan's clothes, revealing a body so beautiful that the judges were unable to condemn this divine-looking being to death.
Gérôme's painting, exhibited at the Salon in 1861, caused considerable controversy as Phryne, shielding her face with her arm, seems to shrink from the lascivious gaze of the multitude of male judges. It shocked the art world not only for its indecency, but for its modernity. The realism of Gérôme's nude affronted even the liberal novelist Émile Zola who saw in it 'a modern mistress caught changing into her nightdress'. It was caricatured and parodied in the press, but the painting was a runaway success. The sculptural version, which removes the unsettling reaction of the judges, is not so controversial, but focuses simply on the beauty of the goddess-like nude.
A recent study on Goupil and Gérôme by Florence Rionnet notes that versions of the bronze Phryne with the present square base on raised feet with the Greek cartouche resting on a palm are particularly rare.
RELATED LITERATURE
L. des Cars et. al., The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), exh. cat., The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2010, pp. 104-109, no. 47