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Joseph BERNARD (1866-1931) Young girl with a jug or Water ca…
See original version (French)
Joseph BERNARD (1866-1931) Young girl with a jug or Water ca…
See original version (French)
Estimate €15,000 - €25,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Joseph BERNARD (1866-1931)
Young girl with a jug or Water carrier
Model created in 1910
Bronze with brown patina
Signed "J Bernard" on the back of the terrace. Bears the publisher's stamp "Cire perdue/ A.A Hébrard" and the annotation HC on the back of the terrace.
Height Height : 53 cm
Related work :
- Joseph Bernard, Porteuse d'eau, 1912, bronze, H. 175 cm, signed on the base at the back "J.Bernard" 1912 and bears the founder's stamp A.A.HEBRARD / PERDUE, Paris, Musée d'Orsay, inv. no. RF 3161 ;
- Joseph Bernard, Porteuse d'eau, bronze, signed and stamped Cire Perdue / A.A Hébrard and n° 22, Chicago, The Art Institute, n° inv.1943.1189.
Related literature:
- Exposition des œuvres de Joseph Bernard à l'Hôtel de la Revue ' les Arts ', in Les Arts, 1 Août 1914, pp. 16/32 ;
- Luc Benoit, " Joseph Bernard (1866-1931) ", in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1932, vol. 2, pp. 217-228;
- Didier Chautant, Recherches sur la vie et l'œuvre de Joseph Bernard (1866-1931), sculpteur français, thesis at the Ecole du Louvre directed by Jacques Thirion, Paris, 1977;
- René Jullian, Joseph Bernard, Éd. Fondation de Coubertin, Saint-Rémy-les-Chevreuses, 1989; no. 146, pp. 298-302, our copy cited p. 298 ;
- Edited by Alice Massé and Sylvie Carlier, Joseph Bernard 1866-1931. De Pierre et de Volupté, cat. Exp. held from 18 October 2020 to 21 February 2021 at the Paul-Dini museum in Villefrance-sur-Saône and from 20 March to 20 June 2021 at the Piscine-musée d'art et d'industrie André-Diligent in Roubaix, Édition Snoeck, Gand, 2020 notice written by Valérie Montalbetti: "La Jeune fille à la Cruche", pp. 220-221;
- Annick Lemoine and Juliette Singer, Le Paris de la modernité, 1905-1925, cat. Exp. held from 14 November to 14 April 1924, Paris, Petit Palais, Édition Paris Musée, 2023, cat. 317 and p.312.
Created by Joseph Bernard, this bronze sculpture of a young woman with sensual, graceful nudity carrying a jug in a position of charming instability is undoubtedly the most iconic work by this artist, who throughout his career was sensitive to feminine beauty and the search for simplification of form.
The original plaster model welcoming visitors to the room dedicated to the 1925 Exhibition in the fine exhibition "Le Paris de la Modernité", held in the winter of 2024 at the Petit Palais in Paris, is a reminder of the great popularity that this feminine idol with its smooth body and swaying silhouette aroused in the years following its creation.
The work, which the painter Jacques-Emile Blanche described as "a cry of curiosity, astonishment and admiration", seems to have had an initial version with the left arm outstretched in 1905/1907, a period when feminine beauty and movement were intensely occupying the sculptor. A second version was completed in 1910. Measuring 184 cm high, it was presented at the Salon d'Automne in 1912, where critics succumbed to its charm and admired the modernity of its synthetic character: "...Twenty-three beautiful silhouettes, simplified at first by the half-light, soon assert themselves. The initial impression is reminiscent of the extraordinary life of Hindu statuary. Superimposed on this is a memory of the eginotic marbles and sculpted rocks that Bacchus, on his Asian journey, scattered as far as the caves of present-day Lolos. It is only on closer study that the detail reveals the artist's personality:
A naked young girl returns from the fountain; weak but supple, she carries the pitcher of drawn water; O pleasant prettiness, happy peace, fine beauty" (La Plume, 1 November 1912, p. 9/20).
One example was cast in bronze before 1914 and was acquired by the State in 1917 for the Musée du Luxembourg, when the artist entered the Pantheon of Living Artists.
The subject was then exhibited in its original size or in its life-size state, in plaster or bronze, at all the major international and retrospective exhibitions where the artist was represented. To name but a few: the Armory Show in New York in 1913, the Galerie des Arts in 1914, the Pavillon du Collectionneur in 1925, his major retrospective in 1932 at the Musée de l'Orangerie, and, most recently, Le Paris de la Modernité at the Petit Palais in 2024.
The sculptor, who, like many artists, experienced material difficulties, benefited from a hard-won reputation and the attention of Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard, a great talent scout and founder of a renowned foundry since 1902. This shrewd and visionary man signed a publishing contract with the artist in 1908 for small-scale pieces and gave him his first solo exhibition in his gallery at 8 rue Royale, between 4 and 23 May 1908.
An edition of 50 copies of La Jeune fille à la cruche, in its reduced 54 cm version, was contractually agreed with Hébrard, but in the end only 36 copies were produced until 1934. The material sublimates the smooth, polished appearance of the young woman's skin, on which the subtle play of light exacerbates the vibrancy of the movement and the modernity of its pure forms.
See original version (French)
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Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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