Prosper d'Epinay

Prosper d'Epinay's most iconic model, Ceinture dorée epitomises the hedonistic mood of the Second Empire. Exhibited at the Salon of 1874, it encapsulates the sculptor's view of 'la femme moderne'. This was an idea originally suggested by Madame de Cassin, who commissioned the work in 1871. Ceinture dorée was the first sculpture which brought d'Epinay public notoriety in Paris. While it was not well received by the conservative critical establishment, the sculptor re-exhibited the model at the 1878 International Exhibition in the English section, and was awarded the Légion d'Honneur as an English artist. A marble version (of the same reduced size as the present lot) was ordered by Tsar Alexander II, and is now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg.

In its compositional arrangement of a high-waisted figure supported by a draped urn, Ceinture dorée recalls Pradier's statue of Phryne (1845). Like this earlier model, d'Epinay's marble is enhanced by the alluring use of gilding, for which Charles-Auguste Arnaud's Venus of the Golden Hair (1862) also set a precedent. The slender pose and elaborate hair design on the other hand may have been influenced by Carrier-Belleuse's reinterpretation of the French Renaisance style of Jean Goujon.

In her monograph on Prosper d'Epinay (op. cit.), Patricia Roux-Foujols records four marble versions of Ceinture dorée at the height of the present statue of about a metre. One of the three or four known life-size marble versions of the model was sold at Sotheby's London on 20 May 1994 (lot 107).

RELATED LITERATURE

P. Roux Foujols, Prosper d'Épinay (1836-1914): Un mauricien à la cour des princes, Ile Maurice, 1996, pp. 36-39 and 92-93