This female nude, which Phillips reckoned was a posthumous cast, made using the lost wax process, had come from the well-regarded Hebrard foundry, bore the founder’s stamp and had a rich patina. It had been entered from a private European source and generated considerable international pre-sale interest. On the day it was secured for a within-estimate £22,000 by a private collector against London trade underbidding.
The sculpture section, which accounted for around 20 per cent of the sale, also featured a numbered Barye bronze group of a stag, doe and fawn signed and stamped Barye numbered 10 and very similar to a version in Stuart Pivar’s catalogue raisonné of Barye Bronzes, which made an upper estimate £8200 and a bronze bust of a young African titled Shangan by the South African sculptor Anton von Wouw, signed and dated 1907 and inscribed G. Massa Fuse Roma, that realised £9000.
Not so coy with the bidding
UK: THE best-seller of Phillips’ 19th century sale came from the selection of sculpture in the shape of this 20in (52cm) high bronze of a crouching nude by the French sculptor Aimé Jules Dalou. Dalou, a fierce Republican, who spent a period of exile in England in the 1870s, is as well known for his terracottas as for his bronzes, both executed in highly naturalistic style.
