Female headless sculpture in limestone carved in the round. - Lot 109

Female headless sculpture in limestone carved in the round. Slightly swaying, she stretches out her left arm, on which rests a flap of her cloak; she is dressed in an antique-style tunic, tied over her left shoulder and leaving her arms uncovered, held in place by a belt tied around her lower abdomen; strands of her hair fall down her neck. Île-de-France, entourage of Jean Goujon (Normandy ?, circa 1510 - Bologna ?, circa 1566), mid-16th century H. 42 cm Soclée (visible missing parts) This beautiful fragment shows a striking example of Renaissance sculpture of what is known as "wet drapery", borrowed from ancient art, more specifically from Greek antiquity. The shape of the breasts is suggested, as is the hollow of the navel and, on the back, the roundness of the right buttock and the fall of the loins, like a wet cloth adhering to the skin. In fact, with great skill on the part of the sculptor, the clothes closely follow the volumes of the young woman's body. Jean Goujon is particularly credited with interpreting this style, inherited from Antiquity, in France. Although little is known about this sculptor, art historians agree that he was in Italy before 1541, which explains his highly personal vision, outside the Bellifontan melting pot, of the Hellenistic canons that inspired Roman statuary. In the various projects he worked on, he demonstrated his predilection for rendering wet draperies, subtly playing with the appearance of fabrics that were sometimes taut, smooth or tightly pleated. One of the hallmarks of his drapery is the use of a belt, sometimes placed high under the breasts, but also at hip height, or even lower, as here, embellished with a knot adorning the lower abdomen. The sculptor created an imposing, solemn version of this in the famous caryatids in the Louvre (fig.a). Numerous artists worked around Goujon, notably on his Parisian projects such as the Fontaine des Innocents and the Hôtel Carnavalet (fig.b), as well as under the direction of Pierre Lescot at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the Louvre. It thus seems legitimate to place in his entourage the realization of this beautiful acephalous female figure showing a real science in the "relationship of the body to the fabric that envelops it" in the words of Pierre du Colombier in his admirable work on Jean Goujon. Works consulted: - P. du Colombier, Jean Goujon, Paris, 1949