Cleo De Merode - Anonymous (early 20th Century)

Superb Art Nouveau period bust of a woman Titled by repute by the former acquirers « Cléo de Mérode ».
Limestone

France
circa 1900
Height 55,5 cm

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This female bust with a high waist and topped with flowers and ribbons likely represents Cléo de Merode, the famous dancer and French beauty icon.

Cleopatra-Diane de Merode said Cleo de Merode (1875-1966) is formed at the dance school of the Paris Opera. She created in 1896 at the Casino de Royan, Phryne , a ballet by Louis Ganne, then called big topic at the Paris Opera, she dances in Coppélia , Sylvia or the Nymph of Diana Leo Delibes The two pigeons André Messager , the Star of André Wormser and the Coronation of the MuseGustave Charpentier. Cleo de Merode leaves the institution in 1898 and began an independent international career and dance until the First World War. It occurs at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900 in the Cambodian dances , created in 1902 in Moscow and Madrid Tanagra on a poem by Paul Frank and Phoebe at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. Despite a successful comeback in 1924 she decided to withdraw from the world of dance in Paris.

Its delicate beauty of beauty out of 1900 remained legendary, and the homage it receives from some famous admirers, especially King Leopold II of Belgium. Cleo de Merode posed for the sculptor Alexandre Falguière, for painters Degas, Jean-Louis Forain, Boldini, it is represented by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his wax effigy at the Grevin museum from 1895. It is one of the first women whose photographic image, due especially to the photographers Paul Nadar and especially Leopold Emile Reutlinger is broadcast worldwide. Elected "Queen of Beauty" on photographs by the readers of L'Illustration in 1896 among 131 celebrities, including Sarah Bernhardt, it increases its notoriety that year with a scent of scandal, due to the exposure of sculpture DancerA life-size white marble nude representative, Alexandre Falguière in French Artists Salon.