Alfred BOUCHER (1850-1934) Volubilis or... - Lot 75 - Audap & Associés

Lot 75
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Result : 41 216EUR
Alfred BOUCHER (1850-1934) Volubilis or... - Lot 75 - Audap & Associés
Alfred BOUCHER (1850-1934) Volubilis or "In the Fields", complete version High relief in white marble Signed " A. BOUCHER " on the base Height : 55 cm 55 cm ; Width : 43 cm ; Depth : 24,5 cm Related literature: - Piette Jacques: Alfred BOUCHER, l'oeuvre sculpte, catalogue raisonne: Editions Mare et Martin, Paris, 2014, p.188, A.38.A ; - Piette Jacques : Alfred Boucher, sculpteur et philanthrope, La Ruche, cite des artistes, published on the occasion of the exhibition held in Evian, editions Alternatives 2009, pp.102 - 110 ; - Piette Jacques : Camille Claudel revelee par Boucher et Rodin, exhibition catalogue, musee de Nogent-sur-Seine, 2003; - Piette Jacques : Centenary of the Nogent-sur-Seine museum, centenary of La Ruche, exhibition catalogue, Nogent-sur-Seine museum, 2002; - Piette Jacques : Alfred Boucher, 1850-1930, sculpteur - humaniste, exhibition catalogue, musee de Nogent-sur-Seine, 2000 ; - Piette Jacques, Heran Emmanuelle: Sculptures, Nogent-sur-Seine, catalogue of the sculpture collection of the Nogent-sur-Seine museum, Aube, 1995; - Piette Jacques, Meyer Helene, Rouquet Chantal, Warnod Jeanine : Alfred Boucher peintre, aspects meconnus, exhibition catalogue, musee de Nogent-sur-Seine 1990. Related works: - Alfred Boucher, Aux champs, white marble, H.137 x W. 92 x D. 50 cm Ville de Prayssac, Région Midi-Pyrénées ; - Alfred Boucher, Salon of 1896, dimensions unknown, work offered to the museum of Nogent-sur-Seine (disappeared); - Alfred Boucher, dimensions not known, but of modest size, work appearing in Boucher's studio in 1902, not located. In 1894, Alfred Boucher was commissioned to create the funeral monument of Ferdinand Barbedienne. It is in this precise context that our work was born. The sculptor models a seated female figure, an allegory of Life extinguishing its torch. If the subject represented is not the same, the general attitude of the Volubilis of 1896 is already clear. Presented at the 1896 Salon, the first model of Volubilis was a huge success for the critics who tasted "with delight the chaste grace and ingenuous delicacy of this high-relief figure of a young girl standing out against a background of high forest chiselled with rare finesse in full marble. "(François Thiébault-Sisson, Le Salon de 1896, Paris & New-York, Boussod. Valadon & Cie, 1896, p. 60). The success of this subject is illustrated by its aesthetic qualities and by the technical mastery that Alfred Boucher demonstrates. The influence of his training is evident. Very early on, he acquired technical mastery from Joseph Marius Ramus, who detected the young man's artistic predispositions and introduced him to the sculptor Paul Dubois. With Dubois and at the École des Beaux-Arts, Alfred Boucher became imbued with a taste for the idealization of the female body. If Dubois, the leader of the "Florentines", found in the Quattrocento a starting point for the creation of his figures, Boucher freed himself from his master by drawing from Mannerism a more powerful exaltation of the female body. The pose of this Volubilis thus magnifies the line and forms of this female nude, in the tradition of the figura serpentinata. Boucher thus responds to the 19th century's taste for idealized, voluptuous and delicate figures of sensual innocence, while renewing this art by drawing inspiration not from the neoclassical heritage but from the Italian Renaissance and Bellifontan mannerism. The treatment of the marble becomes Michelangelo by the contrast between the softness of the flesh and the non-finished background. This aesthetic research will ensure the success of this Volubilis and, strengthened by this observation of the past and the great masters, Alfred Boucher declines the model in numerous variants, each one proper to emphasize the taste of the artist on the work of the contrasts. This series of Volubilis is divided into several "groups", those of mid-body models and those of full-body figures, which are rarer and to which this magnificent marble is attached. If the attitude of the young girl remains the same, standing out more or less in relief from the background, each work becomes a unique piece through the variations on the tree-like decoration of the background, the treatment of the base and the upper part of the marble block. Here Boucher perfectly exploits the principle of the multiple, which is no longer that of the 19th century, repeating an original model identically thanks to the processes of enlargement and reduction, but that of the 20th century, which sees in the notion of series the opportunity to give a new dimension to each model through slight changes. But beyond the artistic perfection sought here in the idealization of the female body, Boucher's work goes far beyond a simple representation of the female body.
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