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Towards the Ideal Paul de Vigne

Artist

Paul de Vigne Ghent, 1849 – Brussels, 1901

Culture Belgian
Date modell: before 1890; marble carving: before 1890
Object type sculpture
Medium, technique marble relief
Dimensions

44 × 38 × 25 cm

Inventory number 3389.U
Collection Department of Art after 1800
On view This artwork is not on display

Born into a family of artists, Paul De Vigne studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, where his first teacher was his father, the renowned sculptor Pierre De Vigne. He later continued his studies in Italy. In 1874, he was commissioned by the Belgian government to create the ornamentation for the
façade of the Royal College of Music in Brussels, for which he produced caryatids and busts. His most famous work, the exquisitely executed allegorical statue Immortality, was produced while De Vigne was in Paris. The work won him acclaim as one of the most important artists in Belgium, and he was subsequently entrusted with a string of official commissions.
During this period, he also produced the carved marble relief Towards the Ideal, sometimes referred to simply as Ideal, which was exhibited in Budapest at the 1890 exhibition of the Association of Fine Arts under the title Female Study. It had been purchased by the Hungarian National Museum, and was later transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts after the museum was opened in 1906. There are several extant versions of this relief, which depicts a young woman in profile, gazing upwards. A plaster copy with the title Hope is owned by the Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Ghent.

Bianka Boda

References

Mácsay, Kriszta – Gimesy, Péter, 19. század, Korszakok a múzeumban, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 2023, p. 240-241.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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