Kneeling Girl Aristide Maillol

Maillol started his career as a painter and went on to design tapestries, which he was forced to give up due to serious problems with his eyes. In the 1890s he met the Hungarian artist József Rippl-Rónai, and the close friendship they formed had an influence on the future development of their careers. From the middle of the decade Maillol began to produce terracotta figurines, and thereafter he dedicated his life to sculpture. Unlike the dynamic, sensual forms of Rodin, Maillol’s works are characterised by simpler modelling combined with greater restraint and equilibrium. His sole subject matter was the female body. He sometimes gave mythological titles to his compositions, alluding to the spiritual heritage of classical sculptural traditions. Maillol himself fired the clay figure of the Young Girl Kneeling, which was among the small-sized compositions exhibited in the gallery of Ambroise Vollard in 1902, the event that first sealed his reputation as a sculptor.