Small Phryne with Drapery

myminifactory

Initially trained as a painter, Maillol turned to sculpture in his early forties, and became widely known for his stately female nudes. Small Phryne with Drapery revisits a classical Greek subject popularized in the 19th century by the French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, one of Maillol’s teachers. When Phryne, a courtesan famous for her beauty, was brought to court for impiety, her lawyer revealed her naked body in a desperate gesture. Enthralled by her heavenly beauty, the jurors acquitted her. While Gérôme’s painting shows the various reactions of the judges ranging from surprise to lust at the instant of Phryne’s disrobing, Maillol’s sculpture dramatically puts us, the viewers, in the position of witnesses to the courtesan’s beauty, triggering our imagination to participate in her judgment. Edition 2/4 -Gülru Çakmak, Assistant Professor of Nineteenth-Century European Art, University of Massachussetts AmherstA Very Long Engagement: Nineteenth-Century Sculpture and Its Afterlives (July 29, 2017 - May 27, 2018)   Gift of Jeffrey H. Loria in honor of Julie A. Lavin (Class of 1986)Digitised by Laura Weston, 2019 - lmweston@mtholyoke.edu