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Lot Essay
In the summer of 1913, Renoir returned to the subject of the Judgment of Paris that he had first explored in 1908 with a sanguine drawing (Dauberville, no. 3582; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.). While working on a painting of the subject (Dauberville, no. 4278; Hiroshima Museum of Art) Renoir began for the first time to explore its potential in sculpture. Ambroise Vollard recalled seeing Renoir at work, "Arriving at Renoir's, I find him with a lump of clay in front of him, 'I can't resist it,' he said. 'I am going to try a small figure'" (quoted in P. Haesaerts, Renoir Sculptor, New York, 1947, p. 24). Acting on Renoir's direction, Richard Guino, the young Spanish sculptor and pupil of Aristide Maillol, modified and executed a small Vénus debout and thus began a collaboration between the two artists. The small Vénus debout became the starting point for Grande Vénus Victrix (fig. 1) and, according to Haesaerts, it is "the most consummate and the most complex of (Renoir's) sculptures, and, better than any other, satisfies demands which are almost conflicting. It is pushed to the point of ultimate perfections, and seems improvised. It is majestic and simple, familiar, in contact with the world, and yet distant, withdrawn, as it were, into solitude" (ibid., p. 25).
The present work is a life-size study for the Grande Vénus Victrix. The subject of the drawing and subsequent sculpture is taken from Greek mythology and portrays Aphrodite at the moment when she triumphs over her rivals Hera and Athena, and is given the golden apple by Paris. A young girl from Essoyes, Marie Dupuis, who was one of Renoir's favorite models during this period, modeled for the sculpture and the preliminary sketches. In the present drawing, Renoir has used a bold sanguine line to describe his conception of the movement of the drapery and expression of the head. The resulting figure of Vénus Victrix “clearly belongs to the family of Renoir’s female types, but the simplification and clarity of her final form ally her with the sculptural heritage of Maillol, and, through Maillol, to a particular version of the Greek ideal” (Renoir, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1985, p. 291).
The present work is a life-size study for the Grande Vénus Victrix. The subject of the drawing and subsequent sculpture is taken from Greek mythology and portrays Aphrodite at the moment when she triumphs over her rivals Hera and Athena, and is given the golden apple by Paris. A young girl from Essoyes, Marie Dupuis, who was one of Renoir's favorite models during this period, modeled for the sculpture and the preliminary sketches. In the present drawing, Renoir has used a bold sanguine line to describe his conception of the movement of the drapery and expression of the head. The resulting figure of Vénus Victrix “clearly belongs to the family of Renoir’s female types, but the simplification and clarity of her final form ally her with the sculptural heritage of Maillol, and, through Maillol, to a particular version of the Greek ideal” (Renoir, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1985, p. 291).