Nature Unveiling Herself before Science

model 1895/1899, cast c. 1900

Louis-Ernest Barrias

Sculptor, French, 1841 - 1905

A woman wrapped in silver and gold robes lifts fabric to reveal her head and face in this freestanding cast bronze sculpture. The woman’s skin and a garment held in place with a belt are polished gold. The fabric that drapes over her head and wraps around her garment is silver, and her hair is dark brown. In this photograph, her body faces us, and she tips her head to look down and slightly to our left. She has a long nose, high cheekbones, a pointed chin, and her lips are closed. The belt has an oval green stone at the front, and it wraps tightly around her ribcage just under her bare breasts. The gold garment puddles around her bare feet, and a bit spills off the front edge of the brown, bronze square platform, which sits on a slightly wider marble base swirled with white and russet brown.

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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G1-C


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bronze with silvering and malachite

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Frank Anderson Trapp

  • Dimensions

    height without base: 57.2 cm (22 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    2004.166.1


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Shepherd Gallery, New York); purchased 1993 by Frank Anderson Trapp [1922-2005], Pittsburgh; gift 2004 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2009

  • The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy, 1850-1900, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 2009-2010, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 1 of chapter "Sculpture and Privacy."

Inscriptions

on proper left side of self base: E. Barrias

Markings

FM: Susse F. Ed'r

Wikidata ID

Q63864220


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