Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935)

"The earliest known reference to bronze casts of Gaston Lachaise’s very freely and forcefully worked relief of a loosely draped, saucy female nude on tiptoes is in a record of the consignment by the artist’s widow of five examples, including the present cast, to M. Knoedler & Co., the gallery representing the artist’s estate from 1946 to 1955. In 1953, Edith Gregor Halpert (1900-1970), owner of The Downtown Gallery, purchased four of them. The fifth was returned by Knoedler to Lachaise’s widow in 1955 and now belongs to the Lachaise Foundation, which was established in 1963 to manage the artist’s estate. Halpert’s four casts were sold by her gallery in 1953-54; one of these is the cast acquired by Dr. Herbert Kayden and his wife, Dr. Gabrielle Reem. The subsequent history of the other three has not been established; whether any of them is the cast (or casts) exhibited in 1963-64 and 1984 is not known. Although generally dated 1915 or thereabouts, the model for the lively relief was more likely created some years later. The plaster model, recorded in an early photograph owned by the Lachaise Foundation, was lost before 1969. A damaged plaster model, perhaps the same one, turned up at a New York City foundry, the Roman Bronze Works, in 1988, and is now unlocated. The relief has been assigned the identification number LF 11 by the Lachaise Foundation."

We are grateful to Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Lachaise’s oeuvre sponsored by the Lachaise Foundation, for preparing the entry for this work.