Île-de-France by Aristide Maillol, Bronze sculpture in Carrousel Garden, France
Île-de-France by Aristide Maillol is a bronze figure in the Jardin du Carrousel that depicts a female form with smooth lines and balanced proportions. The work displays the artist's characteristic approach to the human body, including refined details in the hands and feet.
Maillol modelled the figure in 1925, the year he returned to full-length nudes after years of torsos. The bronze itself was cast in 1964 by Georges Rudier, the founder who worked from the artist's plasters for the Dina Vierny donation to Paris. The hands and feet are worked in the round rather than left rough, a change from his earlier truncated bodies.
The sculpture was donated to Paris in 1964 along with several companion pieces by Dina Vierny, who served as the artist's model. It embodies a female form that Maillol favored repeatedly during his later creative period.
The bronze stands in the Jardin du Carrousel, the open ground between the Louvre's Sully wing and the Tuileries, reached on foot from the Palais-Royal–Musée du Louvre metro station. The surface is flat and paved, so you can circle the work and compare its profile from several sides; the garden stays open to passers-by outside museum hours.
The bronze was cast by Georges Rudier, the founder who also worked for Rodin and produced many posthumous Maillol editions. The 1964 installation in the Jardin du Carrousel came from Dina Vierny's donation, so the piece standing there is a cast made after the sculptor's death, not a lifetime original.
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