Ossip Zadkine (1888-1967) - Jeune fille à la Colombe

1928

Height: 80 cm

Gilt and painted plaster sculpture

 

Jeune fille à la Colombe is an extraordinary, unique, gilt, example of the sculpture, conceived also for a bronze edition in 1928, that encapsulates the best-known characteristics of the artist’s work at this time. Its deep, golden patina has been achieved through the application of gold leaf atop a deep crimson painted layer to add depth to its radiance, a technique reminiscent of Russian icons and Byzantine altarpieces and achieving the same monumentality. The subject of the young, beautiful woman holding a dove a conveys a universal message of peace, purity, love and harmony, in line with the Jewish symbolism of the artist’s heritage, and also the figure of Aphrodite in Ancient Greek mythology whose symbol is the dove. He would depict a reworking of this motif in a full-length 1938 cast entitled Venus, removing the bird, with retaining a similar pose for the bust and similar contrasts in patina.

The darker accents on her hair and the wing of the bird, by contrast with her radiant, gold, torso, furthermore evoke the Golden Buddha, Phra Phuttha Maha Suwana Patimakon of Bangkok, Thailand. The Buddha had provided inspiration in earlier works of similar colouring from 1919 such as the gilt-wood Bouddha. As a result, Jeune fille à la Colombe assumes an emblematic quality with a serenity and gracefulness achieved through her subliminal counterparts throughout history and her undistorted, classical proportion. At the same time, spatial innovations between the concave and convex surfaces, produce dramatic silhouettes from every angle, a quintessentially avant-garde adaptation of form that unites with its material gloriousness in gold, to produce a modern icon of universal symbolic power and magnificence.