ARISTIDE MAILLOL (Banyuls-sur-Mer, 1861- 1944). "Head of young girl, possibly Dina Vierny, muse of

ARISTIDE MAILLOL (Banyuls-sur-Mer, 1861- 1944).
"Head of a young girl, possibly Dina Vierny, the artist's muse".
Bronze.
Signed with anagram.
Exhibitions: "European sculpture of the 20th century", European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM), Barcelona, 2014.
Size: 23 cm (sculpture) + 14 cm (base).
The young girl's head that we are now bidding for is possibly Dina Vierny, the great muse of French sculpture. She was the favourite model and collaborator of the sculptor Aristide Maillol during the last ten years of the artist's life. After the sculptor's death, she was appointed executor of his estate.
Aristide Maillol was the foremost sculptor in France during the period between Auguste Rodin and the avant-garde, and had a great influence on the subsequent practice of the discipline. His style, New Classicism, presented a renewed and synthetic version of the classical, especially Greek, background. He was interested in depicting Mediterranean women, as evidenced by his works "Mediterráneo" (1902), "Acción encadenada" (1906) and "Monumento a Cezzáne" (1912-1925). Although he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1882 and 1886, his training was largely self-taught. An admirer of Rodin, he met Gauguin, who introduced him to the art of medieval tapestry. After painting, tapestry and ceramics, he took a late interest in sculpture, which he began to practise around 1895. While the aesthetic of the "prophets of art nouveau" was noticeable in his early reliefs, Maillol evolved towards a simplification of forms, an increasingly "classical" interpretation of the human figure. Today the Musée Mallol (in Paris and Banyuls) houses part of his work.