A silvered bronze with additional parcel-gilding on a grey marble base.

The Standing Sappho is the most famous example of the series of sensual antique women which the sculptor created during the 1840’s, a period which has been characterised as the decade of the Pradier Salon Woman. The critic Theophile Gautier enthused over the figure’s ‘souple draperie, flottante et précise’ and it is certainly the most sensuous of his three versions of the subject.

The VP mark identifies the maker Victor Paillard whose experiments with silvered and gilt-bronze were perfected by 1851 when he exhibited a silvered bronze of the Standing Sappho to critical acclaim at the Great Exhibition.

The present work is a beautiful example of this model; silver and parcel-gilt, with gilt bronze base raised on a rare French marble socle with a gilt guard.

Signed: J. Pradier 1848, crowned and stamped with the silver mark VP.

Height: 17.75 inches (45 cm),  (21 inches, 54 cm overall)

References:

 M Stocker:  Delicious Marble Dreams: The Sculpture of James Pradier
[ Apollo, June 1986] pp 396-403.

Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Statues de Chair; Sculptures de James Pradier  [Geneva, 1985] pp 156-158

Pierre Kjellberg: Bronzes of the 19th century [Schiffer 1994]