Bourdelle posing in front of two models of France at the Rudier Foundry, circa 1925

In 1922, the sculptor Albert Bartholomé recommended Bourdelle for a massive project: the design of a sculpture of France, to be erected on the Pointe de Grave, near Royan, in front of a monument celebrating the United States' entry into the war in 1917. Thus France was to symbolically look out towards Auguste Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty on the other side of the Atlantic. Bourdelle's sculpture was never erected in that location and was subsequently put to other uses, both during Bourdelle's lifetime and after his death, notably on the forecourt of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Bourdelle worked passionately on this monumental sculpture, created first in modest proportions in unfired clay before being enlarged by specialist assistants. Taken at the Rudier Foundry, this photograph shows Bourdelle between two bronze proofs of France, one of intermediate size and the other final size (9 metres high), thus revealing the material reality of sculpture.

Colin Lemoine