La Joueuse de Flûte

(1903-1905)

In 1905, 12 years after Claudel’s famous sculpture La Valse was exhibited at the Paris Salon, La Joueuse de Flûte was also admitted to this important annual exhibition. The preceding year, Claudel wrote to bronze caster Blot that she had modelled a ‘petite faunesse’ and that she had become enormously attached to her ‘sirène’. Looking back, it proved to be her final large sculpture before psychological problems made working virtually impossible.

The influential critic Morice wrote the following about the flautist: «But this siren, who sits, knees up, seemingly bringing her entire body to her lips, plays – with her god-like flute – the keening sound of superhuman passion. The cooing of the doves, the wind over the trees, the plains, the sea, the muse: you are not the singer, you are the singing itself that is shaped. »