SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
The French sculptor Aristide Maillol, born and died in Banyuls-sur-Mer (1861–1944), developed his oeuvre after an initial engagement with painting and the decorative arts, particularly ceramics and tapestry. His sculpture, described as synthetic and attentive to the arrangement of masses, diverges from the descriptive art of the 19th century. One source also describes it as having opened a path towards abstraction in its field.
He devoted himself to sculpture at around the age of forty. Around 1900, his first wooden sculptures, followed by his clay modelling, marked a turning point and brought forth a repertoire of forms that would develop over the course of his subsequent work. La Méditerranée bears witness to this work: Maillol exhibited the plaster version at the Salon d’automne in 1905, then produced another version in marble in 1923, following a state commission. This version is now held at the Musée d’Orsay. From 1905 onwards, public and private commissions marked his career. The monument to Louis-Auguste Blanqui includes L’Action enchaînée, a nude female figure attempting in vain to free herself from her bonds.
Commissions also led him to bring sculpture and decoration into dialogue. For the collector Ivan Morozov, who commissioned painted panels for his salon, Maillol produced four life-size sculptures: Pomone, Flore, L’Été and Le Printemps. His activity was not limited to monumental sculpture: he produced woodcuts to illustrate ancient texts, including Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics, Ovid’s The Art of Love and Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe.
During the interwar period, Maillol created war memorials in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Céret, Elne and Port-Vendres, as well as a funerary monument in Basel. Following their meeting in 1934, Dina Vierny became his principal model for around ten years. His late monumental sculptures include La Montagne (1937), which brings to a close a cycle begun at the start of the century, and L’Air (1938). Begun in 1940, Harmonie remained unfinished.
Two retrospectives devoted to his work took place in 1933, in New York and Basel. In 1937, at the Paris International Exposition, his sculptures occupied a prominent place in the new Musée national d’art moderne at the Palais de Tokyo. In 1964, Dina Vierny donated nineteen sculptures, now displayed in the Jardin du Carrousel in Paris. In Banyuls-sur-Mer, the Musée Maillol was inaugurated in 1994 in the artist’s former farmstead, which served as his studio.
This profile brings together identity references for Aristide Maillol and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
14 references are documented at Dobiaschofsky, Kornfeld, Piguet, Germann, Lempertz, Genève Enchères. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.
Kreide, stellenweise weiß gehöht, auf dünnem Papier, auf Papier und festem Velin aufgezogen
Auction date : 2023-12-02
Published result : 3780 EUR
Including buyer’s premium
Estimate : 3000
View the lot at the auction house ↗Pastel
Visage de jeune fille
pastel
Catalogue period : 2022-06-16
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 25000
View the lot at the auction house ↗chalk
Catalogue period : 2022-06-03
Published result : 2400 CHF
Hammer price, excluding fees
Estimate : CHF 1500
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil on paper
Etude de nus, dessin recto verso,
crayon sur papier
Catalogue period : 2021-05-26 — 2021-06-09
Published result : 650 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 700–900
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil
"Nu assis".
Bleistift
Catalogue period : 2017-05-11
Published result : 2400 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 3800
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Charcoal
Nu assis de dos
fusain
Catalogue period : 2017-05-04
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 600–800
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil and charcoal
"Femme nue de dos".
Bleistift und Kohle
Date to be documented
Published result : 2600 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 2800
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Charcoal
Nu couché
fusain
Catalogue period : 2019-09-25
Published result : 2600 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 3000–5000
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Charcoal on paper.
Jeune fille qui marche dans l'eau, 1921
Kohle auf Papier.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil drawing
Femme debout de dos, 1930
Bleistift-Zeichnung.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil drawing
Frauenakt
Bleistift-Zeichnung.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
View the lot at the auction house ↗Charcoal drawing on tinted rag paper
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 3000
View the lot at the auction house ↗Red chalk
Weiblicher Rückenakt.
Rötel
Date to be documented
Published result : 3300 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 3600
View the lot at the auction house ↗Red chalk
Stehender weiblicher Akt.
Rötel
Date to be documented
Published result : 2400 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 3500
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
Documentation updated : 2026-10-19
