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Baigneuse aux bras lev‚s signed with monogram 'AM' (on the left side of the base); inscribed with foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier. Fondeur. Paris.' (on the back of the base) bronze with dark brown patina Height: 32 7/8 in. (81.9 cm.) Conceived in 1898; this bronze version cast before 1952 PROVENANCE Dina Vierny, Paris. Louis D. Cohen, New York (acquired from the above, October 1962). Richard M. Cohen, Los Angeles (by descent from the above). By descent from the above to the present owner. LITERATURE M. Denis, Aristide Maillol, Paris, 1925 (another cast illustrated). J. Rewald, Maillol, Paris, 1939, p. 165 (another cast illustrated, pl. 70; plaster version illustrated, pl. 71). M. Bouvier, Aristide Maillol, Lausanne, 1945, p. 75 (another cast illustrated). W. George, Aristide Maillol et l'ƒme de la sculpture, Neuchƒtel, 1977, p. 247 (another cast illustrated, p. 201). B. Lorquin, Maillol aux Tuileries, Paris, 1991, p. 14 (another cast illustrated). L.K. Kramer, Aristide Maillol: Pioneer of Modern Sculpture, Ph.D. diss., New York University, 2000, pp. 74-76 (another cast illustrated, pl. 87). EXHIBITION Stockholm, Galerie Pierre, 1967. New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, Aristide Maillol: 1861-1944, December 1975-March 1976, p. 83, no. 87 (illustrated). NOTES The present sculpture occupies a central place in Maillol's oeuvre. Originally executed circa 1898 as a statuette only ten inches high, it is among the earliest figures to achieve the sense of formal purity and classic timelessness that would become the sculptor's hallmark. A cast of the ten inch version was the only work that Maillol kept in his home (M. Bouvier, op. cit., p. 75); and the clay model was purchased by the dealer Ambroise Vollard on his first visit to Maillol's studio in 1898, financing the artist's purchase of a proper kiln (L.K. Kramer, op. cit., p. 75). Moreover, the motif of the sculpture--a nude woman dressing her hair--is derived from Hellenistic statues of Venus rising from the sea and wringing out her tresses and illustrates the inspiration that Maillol drew from the art of antiquity throughout his career. The theme of the bather dressing her hair continued to fascinate Maillol throughout his career. He made two other sculptures of the same subject, altering the woman's pose and proportions (see Kramer, pl. 260; and Christie's, London, 28 June 1994, lot 147), and used a similar figure for one of twelve lithographs illustrating Ovid's Art of Love in 1935 (Kramer, pl. 207; Mus‚e Maillol, Paris). He also depicted a nude arranging her hair on a glazed ceramic wall fountain from 1898-1899 (Kramer, pl. 86; Mus‚e Maillol, Paris).