Lot 100: w - ALESSANDRO LAFORÊT ITALIAN, 1863-1937

A STANDING FEMALE NUDE

A STANDING FEMALE NUDE

measurements note
95cm., 37½in.

signed: A. Laforet

white marble

NOTE

Laforêt was active as a sculptor in Italy at a time of great artistic change. The influence of Rodin and the innovations of Art Nouveau combined to transfer the artistic heart of Europe from Rome to Paris. Sculptors from all parts of Europe and America gravitated to Paris in the last decades of the 19^th century.

Laforêt trained at the Brera Academy with the more traditionalist sculptors Francesco Barzaghi (see lot 109) and Enrico Butti, but the modernist tendency in his style aligned him more with the style of Giuseppe Grandi, with whom he is also recorded as studying. In 1896 he spent a year in Paris, where the natural lyricism of his approach was enhanced by the Parisian aesthetic.

The present sensitive marble is indicative of Laforêt's transitional style from late Neo-classicism to a Rodinesque Romanticism, interpreted in a very Italian spirit.

Back in Italy, Laforêt had a successful career, winning numerous commissions for monuments across northern Italy, working on the decoration of Milan Cathedral, as well as having regular success in exhibition competitions.

RELATED LITERATURE
Panzetta, vol.1, p.162; Vicario, vol.2, p.595