Antoine Bourdelle on the remains of a lion

This astonishing photograph is almost surreal. In his densely-packed sculpture studio, a young Antoine Bourdelle is asleep leaning on the remains of a lion, which seems to be welcoming him unreservedly, with its paws spread wide. The skilful staging creates a dual image – gentleness and danger, trust and threat. Could this be a metaphor for creation equivalent to that of the centaur – that hybrid creature that combines human and animal – or of thought and impulse? Bourdelle uniquely re-used the figure of the lion in two major works: on one of the small reliefs adorning the rock of a version of Hercules the Archer called Hercules and the Nemean Lion and on the pedestal of the Monument to General Alvear (1913-1923).

Colin Lemoine