LA SÈVE (THE SAP)
RAOUL-FRANÇOIS LARCHE (1860–1912)
French
Date : Plaster: 1893 / Sculpture : ca. 1900
Dimensions : Height: 98 cm
Material : White Carrara marble
Signature : “RAOUL LARCHE”
Historical and artistic context
La Sève is an allegory of the arrival of spring and the rising of sap in nature. It depicts a joyful woman, her arms raised toward the sky, her body entwined with branches from which buds are blossoming. Édouard Larche, the sculptor’s brother, described it: “The branches represent the wind along the body, enveloping it with its leaves and buds full of sap, whose gesture, arms raised, seems to accentuate the germination.”
The body, with its beautiful carnation, embodies fertility and the glorification of nature. The face is that of Georgette Lecoeur, the artist’s regular model for his great allegorical figures, and is inscribed in the idealized academic canon, with ornamental incursions close to Art Nouveau.
The work was first exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français of 1893 (no. 3055) in plaster. The monumental marble was commissioned by the State for the Salon of 1909, then assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture. The plaster was donated by the artist’s widow to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux in 1920.
Literature
- WILLI, Arthur. Le multiple dans l’œuvre de Raoul Larche. Mémoire de recherche de master 1 en histoire de l’art, sous la direction de Jérémie Cerman, Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2021.
