Charles Malfray (1887-1940) - Lot 193

Lot 193
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Estimation :
4000 - 6000 EUR
Charles Malfray (1887-1940) - Lot 193
Charles Malfray (1887-1940) The Silence, called The Ball Circa 1920 Studio plaster, version with a rock Signed "Ch. M H. 60 x W. 40 x D. 36 cm In 1904, Charles Malfray moved to Paris, to the Butte Montmartre, thanks to a ten-year pension from the city of Orleans. He joined the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and frequented the circles of avant-garde artists. Mobilized during the First World War, the sculptor witnessed the horror of the trenches. It was during this period that he sculpted his first wooden version of Silence, which served as a medicine box. Later, Malfray published two versions in terracotta and bronze, one with rock and the second without rock, from the model he sculpted in clay in 1918. This work is part of the artist's body of work on the theme of war. Through this figure of a man curled up on himself, nestled against a rock assimilated to the wall of a trench, Malfray represents here "the idea of anguish and suffocation of the man cornered by the horror of war. The Silence is an allegorical portrait of the poilus of 14-18. It differs from other works of Malfray dealing with the war: the symbolic prevails, to suggest violence and loneliness more than to figure them. At first, Malfray carves his Silence in a small piece of wood in the trenches. Then, back in Paris after the war, he enlarged Le Silence to different scales and created a new version. In this one, the back of the character is integrated into a rock, thus amplifying the idea of anguish and suffocation of the man cornered by the horror of war. Related literature : - Jacques de Laprade, Malfray, Paris, Ed. Fernand Moulot, 1944, pp. 17-18. - Jean Baptiste Auffret and Eve Turbat, Charles Malfray 1887-1940, Sculpteur, Ed. Galerie Malaquais
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