Émile-Coriolan-Hippolyte Guillemin

FRENCH
BUSTE D'ALGÉRIENNE (BUST OF AN ALGERIAN WOMAN)

1841-1907

Émile-Coriolan-Hippolyte Guillemin

signed: Ele Guillemin
bronze, red, green, dark brown and light brown patina, on a red marble socle
39cm., 15 3/8 in. overall

Provenance:
Guillemin was one of the most prolific and successful French Orientalist sculptors. He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon, where from 1877 he submitted works with exclusively Orientalist themes. His first example in this genre was the marble and bronze bust of the Femme Mauresque which initiated a series of busts of beautiful Oriental women. His approach to his subjects was not simply decorative and, as in the work of Charles Cordier, Guillemin went to great lengths to ensure the ethnographic accuracy of the costumes and physiognomies of his busts.