JOHN FLANDRICK PHOTO
J.E. has a great-looking plaster sculpture of a lovely camel standing squarely on four skinny legs, bending his neck to gaze at his viewers. This 3-foot unsigned piece is painted matte black over white Plaster of Paris and is reinforced with rebar inside the animal’s hulking body. A chip off the leg allows us to see the white plaster and the support.
The plaster piece rests on a plinth, which is part of the sculpture and also plaster, although the plinth is painted gold. Think of the Art Nouveau movement and the Arts and Crafts style of gold picture frames of the first quarter of the 20th century and you will find a commonality of line. That’s one key to the age of the sculpture. But the other indicator of the age and the era is the camel itself.
The dominant style of the first quarter of the 20th century was orientalism, caused by the discovery of the exotic ways of Egypt, Arabia, China and Africa. People over there were not “civilized”; they were more animalistic, they were devious and mysterious and addicted to forbidden things, and had less reason to wear clothes, the thought was. The East was seductive. Remember the flowing robes and dark eyes of Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik? Anything Eastern was beguiling to an era that had just thrown off the shackles of Victorianism.
The East was celebrated in the late 19th century music that retold “One Thousand and One Nights”: think of Rimsky-Korsakov‘s “Scheherazade” and Respighi‘s “La Boutique Fantastique.” Theater promoters rode this Orientalist wave, such as the famous ballet aficionado Sergei Diaghilev, who used Picasso and Bakst to design harem pants, belly shirts and turbans for dancers such as Nijinsky.
Ladies’ fashions rode the wave as well. Gowns were “al la Turk,” or featured the high Greek waist and slinky folds. Designers like Fortuny draped his naked females with miniature Greek-style pleating, very revealing, and worn without a corset (gasp). Dresses of flowing silk from the East were ornamented by flapper-style headbands of a single peacock feather.
The bronze sculptors of the era jumped on the sinuous curves and discovered a ripe opportunity to depict half-disclosed nudity from 1900-20. Famous bronzes of this era usually paired wild exotic animals with female Turkish dancers; tigers and nude gypsies; nude dancers with Ostrich fans; and, of course, as we return to the camel — female slaves picked for the harem of Bedouin warriors mounted on — yes — dromedaries.
A father-son team of animaliers (this is the fancy French name for a sculptor who works with the animal form) made a name for themselves in Orientalist sculptures of exotic creatures. These were copied widely. These artists loved the awkward but compelling line of the camel. Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875) sculpted his “Dromedaire debout,” which will sell today in bronze for more than $5,000. His son, Alfred Barye (1839-1882), kept the flame alive with his “Mounted Moor on Camel,” selling for more than $4,000 today in bronze.
Yet we cannot speak of sex, animals and wild abandon without speaking of Vienna in 1900. We do ourselves a disservice if we ignore the current in the Viennese air that produced the highest of this type of sculpture, with its wild animals and great stallions mounted by naked women and virile men. These are the famous Vienna Bronzes of the Austrian School of 1900-1920. And, yes, I meant to point out that Freud must have seen these bronzes, as they were the rage in Vienna in his day.
The most celebrated of these Austrian sculptors in 1900 was Franz Xavier Bergman (1838-1945) and Rudolf Chocoka (1888-1958). Their camels, horses, bulls and other virile animals go for thousands in bronze today, although they are small enough for a bedside table. And if the sculpture included a nude erotic pose of a female form with the wild animal, that’s exactly where these were displayed.
J.E.’s camel is a middle-class version, cast in plaster, lacking the sex appeal of the Vienna School but containing the same reference to Eastern exoticism, which is, of course, embodied in the aloof and silent camel. Plaster sculptures could be purchased in 1900 for one-quarter the price of bronze and still had the oomph when seen on a mantelpiece. Few of these were signed but most were copied from famous bronzes of the day and sold to the frowning but eager middle classes. J.E.’s camel is worth $350.