Torso of Pallas

Bourdelle's major work, the Bust of Pallas (1903-1905), shows how much the sculptor owed to Greek art, and to the Severe style in particular. This incomplete figure, resembling an excavated ancient piece, followed an unfinished marble, made a few years earlier (1897-1898). The first three bronze proofs, cast by Hébrard in 1905, were strictly supervised by Bourdelle. It was one of these that Bourdelle photographed, applying gouache to the glass plate negative. Thus cropped, the sculpture floats in an indistinguishable space, asserting its sovereign synthesis.

Colin Lemoine