Constantin BRANCUSI (1876 - 1957) Portrait of a young girl, - Lot 1

Constantin BRANCUSI (1876 - 1957) Portrait of a young girl, clay, ca. 1907, Clay sculpture made in 1907. Photograph. Vintage silver print signed and dedicated by the author in ink on the back "Souvenirs bien affectueux à Mademoiselle Gravier. C. Brancusi". Another print of this image is in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Height 27.2 - Width 20.8 cm Accents, tears. Provenance : - Gilberte GRAVIER (born 1898), - Madeleine A. (b. 1924), her daughter, - By descent to the present owners. This photo perfectly fulfills the role of document, given that the sculpture is lost. Indeed, a version of this photo may have been seen in a 1907 view of the studio, as Sidney Geist aptly notes that the sculpture was "a study of a figure with oriental features that might have been associated with Rodin's drawings of Cambodian dancers". (Geist, Brancusi: A Study of a Sculpture, New York, 1983, p. 24)