Aristide Maillol
Woman with Both Hands in Her Hair 1905 ou avant
Model created in 1905 or earlier
Vollard edition begun in 1905
Model no.11, “Femme les deux mains aux cheveux”, Catalogue of the sculptures by Maillol produced in editions by Ambroise Vollard, compiled by Ursel Berger (voir 2021 BERGER-LEBON, p. 15).
Sand cast by Florentin Godard (without foundry mark), executed between 1907 and 1937
Artist’s monogram inscribed in a circle (at the back) : AM
38 x 10 x 11,5 cm
Provenance
- United States, Private collection
Bibliographie
- 1939 GEORGE : Waldemar George, Maillol, Berlin, G. Weise, 1939, n°8, repr.
- 1996 CATALOGUE EXPOSITION MUSÉE BERLIN-LAUSANNE-BRÊME-MANNHEIM : commissariat de Ursel Berger, Jörg Zutter, Aristide Maillol, catalogue d’exposition [Berlin, Georg-Kolbe Museum, 14 janvier – 5 mai 1996, Lausanne, musée cantonal des beaux-arts, 15 mai – 22 septembre 1996, Brême, Gerhard Marcks Museum, 6 octobre 1996 – 13 janvier 1997, Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle, 25 janvier – 31 mars 1997], Paris, Flammarion-musée des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, 1996, cat. n°55 (another cast).
- 2003 LEBON : Élisabeth Lebon, Dictionnaire des fondeurs de bronzes d’art France 1890-1950, Perth, Marjon éditions, 2003.
- 2015 CATALOGUE EXPOSITION MUSÉE PARIS : commissariat de Angelika Affentranger-Kirchrath, Marianne Mathieu, Villa Flora. Les temps enchantés, catalogue d’exposition [Paris, musée Marmottan Monet, 10 septembre 2015 – 7 février 2016], Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet-Hazan, 2015, cat. n°20 (another cast).
The year 1905
Maillol created the model of the Woman with Her Hands in Her Hair no later than 1905, a transitional year in the sculptor's career. Though he had been showing his sculptures for barely ten years, two major breakthroughs occurred that year. The first was the public recognition that he received at the Salon d'Automne for his sculpture The Mediterranean. The second was the signing of a second contract with the dealer Ambroise Vollard for the bronze editioning of some of his pieces. Vollard had organized Maillol's first solo show in 1902, and they had signed an initial contract just after.
In the second contract, dated December 20, 1905[1], the sculpture presented here is listed as “Woman with Her Hands in Her Hair” and was acquired by Ambroise Vollard “with the right to edition and to reproduce.” He therefore became the sole person to have the right to edition the piece; it was only after the changes introduced by the law of April 9, 1910 that French sculptors retained their rights to a work after its sale[2].
The "Vollard" Edition
Ambroise Vollard could, therefore, legally edition the Woman with Her Hands in her Hair in unlimited quantities, following the tradition of 19th century dealers who dealt in bronzes, which makes it difficult to determine how many proofs of Woman with Her Hands in her Hair there were.
Four casts in public collections are known. A first cast belongs to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and comes from the former Morosov collection, acquired by the latter directly from the Vollard Gallery around 1910. Two other casts are kept in Swiss collections: one in the Villa Flora, in Winterthur, which came from the Hahnloser collection[3], and another in the Kunstmuseum, in Basel (Museum purchase in 1932, n°inv. P 61). Finally, a fourth cast is held in the collections of the Nationalgalerie in Berlin (Museum purchase in 1949, n°inv. B 14). Another bronze proof of Woman with Her Hands in her Hair, still in private hands, previously belonged to Albert Dreyfus, an art critic who was a friend of Maillol's and one of his important collectors[4].
From 1907 on, Ambroise Vollard had his bronze editions cast by the Parisian founder Florentin Godard, who used sand casting. This is the case with this proof; in general, Godard's proofs did not carry founder's marks, and he stopped production in the around 1937[5].
Woman with Her Hands in her Hair: a statuette representative of Maillol's early work
Apart from his wood reliefs, Maillol's early sculptures are small rounded forms representing female figures, either clothed or not, and either kneeling or standing. The latter include Eve with the Apple (1899), The Shepherdess (1897), Bather with Arm Raised (1900), and Young Girl Standing (1903). With Woman with Her Hands in her Hair, Maillol revisits the theme of Woman Doing Her Hair (1898), this time in a more compact composition with denser proportions, giving the figure a frankly Catalan spirit, similar to that seen in the work of his fellow sculptors Manolo Hugué, Joachin Claret, and José Clara.
[1] This contract is held in private archives.
[2] See 2003 LEBON, p.91.
[3] In the catalogue 2015 CATALOGUE EXPOSITION MUSÉE PARIS, the Bather Doing Her Hair (cat. n°20) is presented under the title Woman with arms raised and dated around 1901.
[4] The work is reproduced under cat. n°55 in 1996 CATALOGUE EXPOSITION MUSÉE BERLIN-LAUSANNE-BRÊME-MANNHEIM.
[5] In 2003 LEBON, p. 166, Élisabeth Lebon notes that Florentin Godard’s activity ceased around 1933-1937.