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Victor Sabatier "Lit from Within" Illuminated Bronze Sculpture
$9,500
This sculpture, "Lit from Within’', by Victorin Sabatier, features a gilded woman emerging from patinated bronze drapery. The cloth that covers her surrounds her head and outwardly extended arms at her side. This imagery is evocative of Jesus’s crucifixion. However, it is likely more fitting that the woman is emergence is linked to nature as she resembles the process in which a flower emerges from a bud to a bloom. Behind the woman’s upper body, hidden in the tented drapery, is the lighted element of the sculpture. This detail, when lit, makes for a dramatically lit scene of emergence.
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- Curator's Notes
Item #: YS-20977
Artist: Victorin Sabatier
Country: France
Circa: 1900
Dimensions: 12" height, 10" width, 4.5" depth
Materials: Gilt Bronze and Patinated Bronze
Signed: "Sabatier" Foundry Mark "Paris Louchet Ciseleur"
Exhibition History: Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1910
Literature: Dynamic Beauty Sculpture of Art Nouveau Paris, Macklowe Gallery, 2011, p 232
“Etains 1900” Philippe Dahan, les éditions de l'amateur
Duncan, Alastair. The Paris Salons, 1895-1914: Objets d'art & metalware. United Kingdom: Antique Collectors' Club, 1994
Tortrat, Abel. Le Berry: étude géographique & historique de la région Berrichonne. France: A. Auxenfans, 1967, p. 394
While there is a visual similarity between the pose of the woman and that of the crucifixion of Jesus, it is far more likely this sculpture alludes to the mechanisms of nature. This sculpture shares visual similarities with "Nature Unveiling Her Secrets To Science" by contemporary Sabatier artist Louis Ernest Barrias. This sculpture features a woman who is an allegory for nature emerging from drapery wrapped around her body. Both sculptures use drapery as clothing and essentially the same pose; thus, they may share the same subject manner.