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Stephan DUKOVITCH (Berdiansk, 1857 - Trieste, 1926)
Aleksand…
See original version (French)
363
-
Stephan DUKOVITCH (Berdiansk, 1857 - Trieste, 1926)
Aleksand…
See original version (French)
Estimate €20,000 - €30,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Stephan DUKOVITCH (Berdiansk, 1857 - Trieste, 1926)
Aleksandros, Antique Nude (circa 1914)
Bronze with green patina, signed in Cyrillic on the leg.
Resting on a marble base engraved in ancient Greek on one side "ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ" and on the other "Η ΚΑΛΗ ΛΑΒΕΤΩ"
H. 88 cm (with base); H. 66 cm (bronze alone).
Exhibition
Most probably exhibited at the XI Venice Biennale, 1914, room 35.
History
A rare and now largely forgotten figure, Stephan Dukovitch belonged to that generation of Central European and Balkan artists trained in the Austro-Hungarian melting pot between Vienna, Trieste and Florence. Born in 1857 on the shores of the Sea of Azov into a family of Dalmatian origin, he trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he was taught by Edmund von Hellmer, before leading a discreet but active career between Trieste and Italy. His work, which is difficult to reconstruct today, seems to be dominated by sculpture, particularly portraiture, in which a careful naturalism is expressed, sometimes tinged with Art Nouveau inflections.
The bronze 'Aleksandros' is one of the most ambitious examples of his work. It depicts a nude male body, standing, leaning slightly forward, his arms thrown back. The silhouette follows a serpentine line, accentuated by the curve of the base, giving the figure a remarkable internal tension. But it is above all the fragmentary nature of the figure that catches the eye, with its truncated head, absent hands and interrupted legs. This aesthetic of the fragment, far from being accidental, is clearly part of the legacy of Auguste Rodin, whose influence was decisive for a whole generation of European sculptors at the turn of the century.
As with Rodin, the apparent mutilation of the body is not a matter of lack but of plastic choice: it intensifies the expressive charge, refocuses the eye on the dynamics of the torso and echoes the modern reception of ancient sculpture, often known through its remains. The base itself, evoking a fragment of ancient architecture, is part of this poetic archaeology of the body.
The inscription in ancient Greek opens up a more complex field of interpretation. The name ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ could refer to Alexander the Great, but the formula Η ΚΑΛΗ ΛΑΒΕΤΩ ("to the most beautiful") links the work more directly to the myth of the Judgement of Paris. Pâris, also called Alexander in the Homeric tradition, is in fact the one who attributes the golden apple to Aphrodite, triggering the Trojan War.
In this way, Dukovitch seems to be playing with a clever ambiguity between history and mythology, between hero and anti-hero. The constrained posture of the body, far from the heroic ideal, might evoke less the glory of Alexander than the inner dilemma of Paris, caught in the moment of choice. The absence of the apple, and even of the hands, further radicalises this reading: the action is suspended, reduced to pure tension.
Presented most probably at the 1914 Venice Biennale under the title Aleksandros, the work is part of a particularly rich artistic context, where symbolism, sculptural modernity and the rediscovery of Antiquity were in dialogue. It demonstrates Dukovitch's rare ability to synthesise the major influences of his time - Rodin, the taste for fragments, the classical imagination - in a work that is both erudite and intensely expressive.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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