L'Hirondelle Blessée by Alfred Boucher

Alfred Boucher
1850-1934 | French

L'Hirondelle Blessée
(The Wounded Swallow)

Signed "A. Boucher"
White marble

The winged figure of Psyche is the subject of this exquisite marble by the great French Salon sculptor Alfred Boucher. Entitled L'Hirondelle Blessée, Boucher exhibited the work at the Paris Salon of 1898 to great acclaim, and it displays all of the grace and allure of Boucher's very best marble creations. Perfectly proportioned, she evokes the classical Greco-Roman standards of beauty that experienced a revival during the 18th and 19th centuries in Western art. Artists of this period sought to re-create — and even perfect — the human form, and they did so with a realism and intricacy that has rarely been seen in other periods of sculpture.

L'Hirondelle Blessée is particularly renowned today as it was the model for British artist Damien Hirst's 2008 creation Anatomy of an Angel. Hirst's interpretation sold at Sotheby's in 2008 for a remarkable £1,071,650. The figure also closely resembles Boucher's 1892 seated nude at the base of the Ferdinand Barbedienne monument in the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery (Paris).

Born in Bouy-sur-Ovin in 1850, Alfred Boucher was the son of a farmhand who became the gardener of the sculptor Joseph-Marius Ramus. Ramus recognized the young artist's talent and soon opened his studio to the budding sculptor. Boucher quickly rose to fame, first exhibiting at the Salon in 1874 and winning the Grand Prix du Salon in 1881. Celebrated for his portrait busts and allegorical figures such as this one, Boucher is particularly renowned for the naturalism and romanticism of his sculptures.

Circa 1890

16 1/2" wide x 14 1/2" deep x 32" high