E Villanis, Chatelaine, Signed Sculpture, 19th Century

Chatelaine: spelter bust with brown patina of a woman wearing a pearl choker

Sculpture signed E Villanis

Emmanuel Villanis, although born in France in 1858, spent his childhood in Italy, his family's country of origin, and trained as a sculptor at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin.
After exhibiting in Milan, the sculptor moved to Paris where he presented his works at the Salon in 1886; he would exhibit 11 times between 1886 and 1910.
Emmanuel Villanis distinguished himself in the Art Nouveau and Orientalist movements, especially with female busts attesting to a fantasized Orient, very widespread in his time; the polychromy of the different patinas used for the skin tone, the scarf and the base reinforce this chimerical exoticism. His work is inspired by the great heroines of literature, from all mythologies.

Wear of time on the patina

Height 55 cm
21 x 18cm