THE BEAUTIFUL SERVANT GIRL

• OSSIP ZADKINE
  THE BEAUTIFUL SERVANT GIRL

• 103 x 26 x 27 cm
  Valentine Prax bequest, 1981
• [1926 -1928]
• Léville stone
• Inv. MZS 170
• MUSEE ZADKINE
• Room 2

This figure of a woman holding a glass and a bottle was carved in limestone with a very rough grain and with shell inclusions, bearing the visible traces of the work of the tool. Parallel grooves, typical of the lines produced by a claw chisel – which can have 3 or 4 teeth, are particularly evident all along the figure’s left arm. Zadkine was fond of rough- grained limestone, blocks of which he went to search for himself in Burgundy.
This figure is representative of the influence which the Cubist aesthetic once exerted on Zadkine. While adopting a typically Cubist approach to the organisation of planes, the lines of this female figure display a gentler tendency, however. Here Zadkine is clearly attempting to free himself from a certain geometry of form. In 1938, the sculpture adorned the premises in Boulogne-Billancourt of the magazine “L’architecture d’aujourd’hui”, managed by André Bloc. You can see it reproduced in an article published in the same year displaying the recently refurbished premises and thus testifying to the commitment of this magazine to modern artists. In 1938 in number 10 of this magazine, A.Bloc wrote: "We fervently wish that architects would think more often of approaching Zadkine, who has always been concerned about adapting sculpture to the requirements of contemporary architecture".