Leda and the Swan
Original posthumous bronze proof illustrating Leda and the swan. Janniot creates, with this sculpture, an amorous and carnal Leda. The full shapes of her body reminds us of the serpentine line of the animal’s neck and the movement of its folded wings. Nude, Leda rides the swan, enlaces his neck, and puts with fondness her head, eyes almost closed, on the bird’s beak.
The sculpture had been created around 1950. Signed : A. Janniot.
Foundry: Susse – Cast number: 1/8 – 2005.
Dimensions :
Height: 19 in.
Width: 20 ½ in.
Depth: 17 in.
Certificate:
This sculpture is one of the twelve exemplary did cast from the plaster masterpiece of the artist studio (private collection, France), in similar conditions than when he was alive. Its is coming with a certificate from Galerie Michel Giraud, according to the artist’s legal successor Mrs Anne Demeurisse, who authorized the posthumous edition of this sculpture.
Remarks:
Leda, daughter of the king of Etolie, wife of the Sparta’s king : Tyndare. Zeus falls in love with the young woman while she is taking a bath in the Erostas’s river. To seduce her, he changes into an elegant white swan. Leda, seduced, unites with the divine swan. From this union, Leda had two eggs. The first one will give birth to the Dioscures, the twins Castor and Pollux, who will take part in the Argonauts’s expedition. In the second one, Hélène and Clytemnestre, heroines of the Troy war.
Bibliography :
Alfred Janniot, à la gloire de Nice, Paris, GMG ed., 2007, original plaster model ill. p. 77 n° 54.
Alfred Janniot, propos mythologiques et modernes, Galerie Michel Giraud, Paris, GMG éd. & la Librairie du Passage, 2006, pp. 142-144 (similar bronze proof ill. p.143-44).
