Naoum ARONSON (Krāslava, 1872 - New York, 1943 ) Bather, also known as Salomé's Despair White marble Salomé's despair, white marble, by N.Aronson 20.87 x 23.23 x 12.20 in. 53.0 x 59.0 x 31.0 cm Provenance: Private collection, Paris Born in Krāslava, now Latvia, Naoum Aronson received his initial training at the Vilnius School of Drawing before leaving to study in Paris in 1891. There he attended the Colarossi academy, then the École des arts décoratifs, where he studied under Auguste Rodin. He settled permanently in the capital in 1896 and took part in international exhibitions, winning the gold medal at Liège in 1905, and exhibiting regularly at the Berlin Secession and the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-arts. Although he established his reputation through numerous busts of personalities such as Chopin, Pasteur, Beethoven and Tolstoy, our imposing sculpture belongs to the symbolist part of his production, with the voluptuous nude of a seated young woman emerging from the block of marble, her eyes closed, like a bather welcoming the foam of the waves on her pearly skin. The composition can also be likened to the despair of Salomé, a singular iconography inspired by the Bible that was the subject of several versions produced by the artist in different materials over the course of his career. The black marble version, which probably dates from later, was acquired by the French state when it was exhibited at the Salon in 1924, and then moved to the Musée du Luxembourg before joining the Musée d'Orsay. No doubt partly inspired by Oscar Wilde's play or Richard Strauss's opera, Aronson describes the intimate anguish of a remorseful Salome, withdrawn as if to modestly hide her naked flesh, whose sulphurous seduction was rewarded by the beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Deeply influenced by Rodin and a great admirer of Michelangelo, the sculptor's composition here emerges from a barely roughed-out block of marble, which has the particularity of having been photographed in his studio, in the process of being made. The subject provides the pretext for a sensual enhancement of the lines of the back and neck, in the image of Alfred Boucher's nudes or the famous Danaïde by the author of The Gates of Hell. Naoum ARONSON (Krāslava, 1872 - New York, 1943 ) 53.0 x 59.0 x 31.0 cm Born in Krāslava, now Latvia, Naoum Aronson received his initial training at the Vilnius School of Drawing before leaving to study in Paris in 1891. There he attended the Colarossi academy, then the École des arts décoratifs, where he studied under Auguste Rodin. He settled permanently in Paris in 1896 and took part in international exhibitions, winning a gold medal in Liège in 1905, and exhibiting regularly at the Berlin Secession and the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-arts. Although he established his reputation through numerous busts of personalities such as Chopin, Pasteur, Beethoven and Tolstoy, our imposing sculpture belongs to the symbolist part of his production, with the voluptuous nude of a seated young woman emerging from the block of marble, her eyes closed, like a bather welcoming the foam of the waves on her pearly skin. The composition can also be likened to the despair of Salomé, a singular iconography inspired by the Bible that was the subject of several versions produced by the artist in different materials over the course of his career. The black marble version, which probably dates from later, was acquired by the French state when it was exhibited at the Salon in 1924, and then moved to the Musée du Luxembourg before joining the Musée d'Orsay. No doubt partly inspired by Oscar Wilde's play or Richard Strauss's opera, Aronson describes the intimate anguish of a remorseful Salome, withdrawn as if to modestly hide her naked flesh, whose sulphurous seduction was rewarded by the beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Deeply influenced by Rodin and a great admirer of Michelangelo, the sculptor's composition here emerges from a barely roughed-out block of marble, which has the particularity of having been photographed in his studio, in the process of being made. The subject provides the pretext for a sensual enhancement of the lines of the back and neck, in the image of Alfred Boucher's nudes or the famous Danaïde by the author of The Gates of Hell.