Lot 74

Jan Štursa (1880 - 1925) BEFORE THE BATH

One of Jan Stursa's most important sculptures, Before the Bath, can rightly be described as the "sister of the Melancholic Girl". The nude of the kneeling girl, holding a stream of hair with her left hand, is inscribed in an imaginary block of stone, or in the case of the offered work, in sandstone, which becomes a direct part of the composition. The author depicts the girl's nude as a subject in the mode of a nostalgic image of youth, a position familiar to Stursa from the period of his work 1880-1906. The sculpture Before the Bath closes this (melancholic) chapter, while the forthcoming work is characterised by a new sensualism and Dionysian joy. The work on offer presents a unique execution in sandstone, which was most likely a variant before the work was carved in white Laotian marble.