Reclining Figure with Spear

Demetre Chiparus (1886-1947)
20th century, Bronze, black veined marble base

The Franco-Romanian artist Demetre Chiparus, one of the leading exponents of Art Deco sculpture, went to Paris in 1912 to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He immediately started using the combination of ivory and bronze for his elegant sculptures, which were exhibited at the 1914 Salon to great acclaim. This sculpture depicts a semi-recumbent female figure with a shield and spear, dressed in golden veils that, together with her hair, create a seductive contrast with her bronze body. The bronze and ivory statuary produced in France in the 1910s is representative of the Art Deco culture that was flourishing there at that time and shows Symbolist influences such as a fascination for archaic Greece, as in this case, but also for Egypt and the Orient.