ALFRED BOUCHER
French, 1850-1934

Volubilis

Signed A.BOUCHER
Inscribed on base F. BARBEDIENNE Fondeur
Bronze, brown and green patina
28¾ x 18½ x 10¾ inches (73 x 47 x 30 cm)

Executed circa 1892, this is an extremely fine French sand casting made at the prestigious Ferdinand Barbedienne Foundry, Paris.

The genesis of Volubilis lies in a figure Boucher produced circa 1894 for the tomb of the bronze founder Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892), in the cemetery of Père Lachaise. The sculptor presented a marble version of the model under the title Volubilis in the Salon des Champs-Elysées of 1896, and another example was exhibited in the Salon of 1897 under the title Aux champs. Boucher's model was inspired by a poem by René François Sully Prud'homme (1839-1907), which discusses the volubilis, a flower. In Boucher's model, like a flower unfurling its petals, the girl emerges from the rough-hewn rock.

$32,000

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