Maurice CHARPENTIER-MIO (1881 - 1976) "Centuries pass but beauty remains in the ruins". White marble Titled and dated in pencil on the front 'THE CENTURIES PASS... / ON THE RUINS. BEAUTY REMAINS / 1912' Height : 54 cm "Les siècles passent mais sur les ruines la beauté reste", white marble, by M. Charpentier-Mio H. 21.25 in. Provenance: Sale of the sculptor's studio; Angers, Henry Martin and François Branger, 13 March 1985, no. 149 ; Private collection, Paris Dated 1912, our marble belongs to Maurice Charpentier-Mio's rare Symbolist corpus and is a vibrant testimony to his youthful aspirations. The eloquence of its title, written in pencil on the base "Centuries pass but on the ruins beauty remains", is based on a complex allegory embodied by a seductive figure of a naked woman seated on a stone throne resembling a temple, flanked at the bottom by two tigers. Her headdress resembles a nemes, the emblematic headdress of the pharaohs, while the famous silhouette of the pyramid of Cheops, at the foot of which flows the Nile, is clearly visible above her. While her seated, frontal pose is borrowed from the traditional canons of Egyptian statuary, the closed eyes of her face, tilted backwards, evoke the inner world of sleep, dreams and death, justifying the discreet presence behind her neck of the owl, a nocturnal bird associated with funerary symbolism in ancient times. Above her shoulder, in bas-relief, are a number of figures who appear to be dancing, recalling the favourite theme of the sculptor, who was particularly keen to immortalise the dancers of Diaghiliev's Ballets Russes. Echoing the Cleopatra immortalised by Sarah Bernhardt in 1890, our sculpture draws inspiration for its subject from Michel Fokine's ballet of the same title, premiered in 1909 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, itself adapted from Théophile Gautier's short story Une nuit de Cléopâtre. Maurice CHARPENTIER-MIO (1881 - 1976) Dated 1912, our marble belongs to the rare Symbolist corpus by Maurice Charpentier-Mio and is a vibrant testimony to his youthful aspirations. The eloquence of its title, written in pencil on the base "Centuries pass but on the ruins beauty remains", is based on a complex allegory embodied by a seductive figure of a naked woman seated on a stone throne resembling a temple, flanked at the bottom by two tigers. Her headdress resembles a nemes, the emblematic headdress of the pharaohs, while the famous silhouette of the pyramid of Cheops, at the foot of which flows the Nile, is clearly visible above her. While her seated, frontal pose is borrowed from the traditional canons of Egyptian statuary, the closed eyes of her face, tilted backwards, evoke the inner world of sleep, dreams and death, justifying the discreet presence behind her neck of the owl, a nocturnal bird associated with funerary symbolism in ancient times. Above her shoulder, in bas-relief, are a number of figures who appear to be dancing, recalling the favourite theme of the sculptor, who was particularly keen to immortalise the dancers of Diaghiliev's Ballets Russes. Echoing the Cleopatra immortalised by Sarah Bernhardt in 1890, our sculpture draws inspiration for its subject from Michel Fokine's ballet of the same title, premiered in 1909 at the Théâtre du Châtelet, itself adapted from Théophile Gautier's short story Une nuit de Cléopâtre.