Femme Agenouilée vers le Gauche. Kneeling Woman, to the Right by Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944

Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944
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Femme Agenouilée vers le Gauche. Kneeling Woman, to the Right

Original etching in black ink. 1927. Signed in pencil with the monogram. Numbered in pencil from the edition of 150 (plus 15 proofs). Etched and printed at the studio of Vernant, Paris 1927. Edition issued by H.M.Petiet, 1927 (and with his blindstamp in the lower margin.
Ref: Guerin - Maillol Les Eaux-Fortes no 327.

Excellent impression with beautiful crisp line and a light even plate tone. On pale cream light wove Rives paper. Generally excellent condition; slightest trace of old mount hinges on the verso. Full margins. Sheet: 12 3/4 x 16 1/2ins. Plate: 8 1/4 x 10 5/8ins (210x270mm)

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It is the balance of monumentality and rhythm which gives Maillol?s work in the period from the 1920?s its totally individual beauty. He saw the female figure as the expression of an ideal beauty. In the forms themselves he sought to create a sense of surface and volume, a feeling of the sculptural presence of the figure in space and at the same time of the mass contained within the figure. To balance this emphasis on sculptural volume, to give it lightness and movement, he relied on a superlative rhythm of line.

It is this rhythm which is so beautifully apparent in this etched study - the flow of the line from the head down the extended arm to the gentle curve of the fingers, the movement through the whole pose of the figure, the simplicity in the drawing of the lines of the hair or the features. Maillol more usually worked in lithography for his prints, and in these works there is an emphasis on surface. In the pure linearity of this study, one of just a few etchings in his main oeuvre, he has focussed on the way that rhythmic contour line alone can create both surface and shape.