Description
This portrait of a young girl, of which there exists a variant on a circular pedestal (PB73-A), once again demonstrates the sculptor’s mastery of portraiture. It exudes great sensitivity and its restrained facial expression is reminiscent of the high-relief Volubilis (1896-1897), one of his most famous sculptures. It displays virtually the same profile, with loose hair, fine features and a lowered gaze… also to be found in the face of L’Hirondelle blessée (1898).
Alfred Boucher had the reputation of being a great marble carver; he liked to carve directly himself, and had few assistants. Marble works were usually produced in multiple examples, as is the case with our model, of which only two other examples exist in the Musée de Nogent-sur-Seine, making our marble a discovery. With its draped bust on a circular pedestal, it is inspired by the formal portrait bust arrangement favoured by the sculpture of the Age of Enlightenment. Dominique Canaud, in a special issue of « La Vie en Champagne » of 1982, devoted to 19th-century sculptors in the Aube department, had already observed this affinity when he wrote: « For Boucher was « a beautiful hand » that did not shy away from the monumental when the bibelot was preferred, nor from scrupulous naturalism in transcription, or the firm, artifice-free translation of suave feminine beauties in a free-flowing, very “Art Nouveau” style, with whimsical and spontaneous accents that the 18th century would not have shunned. »
