Sarah Bernhardt

Sotheby's Paris, 23 July 2020, lot 12;

Where acquired by the present collector

Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) enjoyed a legendary acting career that spanned six decades and earned her the nickname, The Divine Sarah. 

In the late 1860s, and reportedly to remedy boredom, Bernhardt turned to other creative outlets to subsidize performance, enlisting instruction in the arts of sculpting and painting. She sculpted for the remainder of her life and exhibited in London, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Paris. Unfortunately, only a few of her sculptures can be located today: a mere seven, out of an estimated forty works.

The present object is an inkwell, modelled as a self-portrait in the semblance of a sphinx. She has the body of a griffin, the wings of a bat and the tail of a fish; on her shoulders are the theatrical masks of Tragedy and Comedy. This fantastical work of art serves as a metaphor for Bernhardt's ability to transform herself for her performances and assume any guise. It would seem that Sarah Bernhardt sculpted the model in 1879, as a cast was shown in London that year and another in New York the following year. At this time, Bernhardt would have been rehearsing for the role of Blanche de Chelles in Le Sphinx; one can presume that the mysterious connotations of her character in the play resonated with Bernhardt and provided the inspiration for how to conceptualize herself.

As such, with an intentionally meta-theatrical design, the present piece 'performs' many roles itself: it is an inkwell, a work of art, a monument to the concept of performance and perhaps most importantly a testament to Bernhardt's sculpting skills and sensational imagination.

Several versions of this model are referenced today: an example in tinted plaster is in the musée Carnavalet in Paris (inv. no. S3375), a larger bronze version is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 1973.551a-d).

RELATED LITERATURE

H. W. Janson and P. Fusco, The Romantics to Rodin. French nineteenth-century sculpture from North American Collections, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, 1980, pp. 141-143.

E. Mason, Making Love/ Making Work: The Sculpture Practice of Sarah Bernhardt, doctoral thesis, The University of Leeds, May 2007, vol. II, pp. 263.