Étude d'après Madame Maillol

Aristide Maillol was first and foremost a sculptor. However, drawing was always a great passion for this artist too, both in the form of preliminary studies and as autonomous works of art. In fact, drawing was so important to Maillol that he developed a new kind of paper as he was dissatisfied with existing types. This study of a model is very typical of Maillol’s oeuvre and shows his strong preference for powerful, rounded and sturdy models. This model resembles his wife, but posing naked, even for one’s own husband, was frowned upon in those days. The identity of the model who posed for this ink drawing of a woman in her underwear is in fact unknown. What is certain is that it is not the Russian Dina Vierny, as she did not become Maillol’s favorite model until the last ten years of his life. Her good relationship with Maillol’s wife and son ensured that she later became his legal heir. Vierny was responsible for turning Maillol’s former studio and home into a museum in Banyuls-sur-Mer, the town in the south of France where the artist was born and died, and for establishing the Maillol Museum in Paris, which opened in 1995.