Girl playing with her toes
Signed with a stamp C Milles. Foundry mark L.A 20 cire perdue. Posthumous casting. Bronze, green patina, height 24.5 cm (including stonebase 3 cm).
Erik Näslund, "Carl Milles - a biography", 1991, compare illustration p. 283.
Henrik Cornell, "Carl Milles, his works", 1963, compare illustration p. 132.
Sketch for the Fountain of Faith, Falls Church, Washington DC, 1952.
In the author Henrik Cornell's description of the Fountain of Faith he called this composition "crouching children" (as one of two freestanding sculptures) where the girl is reaching for a butterfly settled on foot.
Carl Milles was a Swedish sculptor born in Lägga. He studied at the Technical School in Stockholm, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Auguste Rodin and on study trips to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. In Paris he came to stay for many years and made a living as an ornament carver. He studied the animals in the Jardin des Plantes (the Zoological Garden) and was strongly influenced by Auguste Rodin. Milles made a breakthrough with a monument to Sten Sture in Uppsala. He exhibited at the World's Fair in 1900 and was later given a solo exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London. Milles was professor of modeling at the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm. Well-known sculptures in public places signed by Carl Milles are the "Gustav Vasa" statue at the Nordic Museum, "Orfeusgruppen" outside the concert hall in Stockholm and the "Poseidonfontänen" in Gothenburg.
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