Original art bronze, numbered 1/8 — 2008 — Bust: 85 cm.
Daphné was created in 2008 for Renoir’s centenary at the Villa des Collettes in Cagnes-sur-Mer, as part of the “Année Renoir”. The chosen theme — woman as muse — echoes the painter’s ideal, dominated by the female model in symbiosis with nature.
“A fragment detaches from her mischievous finger. Lust appears on the petals of her lips. Offer yourself, hide yourself. The flesh is tender, slave to senses that don’t know how to say yes and don’t know how to say no. She is trapped in the web of a blue languishing ideal of delights.”
“She is a woman-caress, a wild woman crazed by desire. She is a fright child, a night child who flees and flays herself from the myriad gazes placed upon her. At the last minute, she hesitates. She’s already lost. Created for desire, a subtle play. Let her be damned forever and ever.”
Inspired by the nymph of Greek mythology, changed into a laurel to escape Apollo, Daphné mingles flesh and bark: eyes blindfolded, the smooth skin of the bronze pierced by branches, raised on a stack of slates cast in metal. A metamorphosis seized at the very instant it takes place.
An original signed work, delivered with a certificate of authenticity. The artist, a graduate of the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, is listed on Artprice and Akoun; four of her works belong to France’s cultural heritage. Price on request — contact the studio in Tourrettes-sur-Loup.