Tracking a sculpture by Aristide Maillol
Where in the World is the sculpture La Rivière – The River – Der Fluss by Aristide Maillol…
Cast: lead 1947 | Musée d'Orsay collection card
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Two different materials are used for the sculpture: There are (maybe) 6 castings in lead and (maybe) 6 in bronze. Under humid weather conditions lead develops a powder white surface, while bronze contains copper that turns green over time.
Cast: lead 1944 numbered 2/6 | collection card
Cast: lead 1947 | Kunsthalle collection card | insta
De riviere (according to park plan)
Cast: lead /likeley, due to white appearance on the museum site
Cast: lead /likeley, due to white appearance on photos
Cast: lead unnumbered | MoMa collection card
Cast: lead | collection card | purchased 1970(?)
Cast: lead | private collection | insta
Cast: bronze numbered 4/6 | collection card
Cast: bronze | collection card
Cast: bronze
The River /temporarily loaned from a private collection, 2012 ~ 2014
Cast: bronze | current owner and location unknown
Many thanks to Grace from the Portland Art Museum for her support on this research project!
El Riu /temporary exhibition 10/2009 – 1/2010 in Barcelona
Cast: bronze | Collection Dina Vierny, Paris
Dina Vierny & Aristide Maillol – Lei Aznavour
Interview with Dina Vierny, NPR 2008
RADIOSCOPIE - Jacques Chancel reçoit Dina Vierny (1975)
Dina Vierny (Moldavia) - Bodaibo (1975)
Maillol's La Riviere –from the collection Dina Vierny– was sold at Artcurial/Sutheby’s in 2013
Cast: bronze | Sotheby’s info card
inscribed Aristide Maillol, numbered 5/6 and stamped with the foundry mark E Godard Fondeur Paris
La Rivière was originally conceived as a monument sculpture to French philosopher, politician and renowned pacifist Henri Barbusse. Maillol modelled a woman stabbed in the back and falling downwards, perhaps shielding herself from her aggressors with her up-thrust arms, as an inverse celebration of Barbusse's pacifying ideals. When the commission fell through, Maillol developed the sculpture into a personification of swelling water. In this light, the natural, unchecked energies of the river comes to mirror the social and political uncertainties of the mid-twentieth century. Maillol conceived this work two years before the beginning of the Second World War, when tensions and troubles were coming to a head. /via Sotheby’s info card
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