Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by the previous owner
Private Collection, Europe
Exhibited
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Contrepoint 2: De l’objet d’art à la sculpture – Porcelaines contemporaines, 1 December 2005 – 20 February 2006 (another example exhibited)
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, on long term loan from a private collector as of January 2007 (another example exhibited)
Permanent Collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris (another example exhibited)
Literature
‘Louise Bourgeois: Porcelain Contemporaines’, Connaissance des Arts (Paris), H.S. no. 269, December 2005, pp. 10–11, p. 10 (illustrated)
M-L. Bernadac and J. Storves et al, Louise Bourgeois, exh. cat., Paris: Èditions du Centre Pompidou, 2008, p. 30 (illustrated)
C. Claudel, Sculpture au Féminin, exh. cat., Limoge: Contrario Galerie, 2009, p. 57 (illustrated, there incorrectly dated 1998–99)
Catalogue Essay
“We are all vulnerable in some way, and we are all male and female.” LOUISE BOURGEOIS

Nature Study, from 2004, is a powerful work by the internationally revered artist Louise Bourgeois. Throughout her long and influential career, Bourgeois was known for her transformations of her own intensely emotional psychological states into extraordinary physical forms. Simultaneously vehicles of sensation and autonomous flesh, her sculptures radiate energy within their three-dimensional space. The artist’s sculptures sit on a fluctuating boundary between personal psychological exploration and the universally symbolic language of the body. They are objects in turmoil, both deeply internal and yet inescapably external. Bourgeois’s highly sensual sculptures embody a provocative fusion of technical sensibility and psychoanalytical tension. Sculptures such as Nature Study, exist as material “literalizations of dreams and nightmares, the beautiful and erotic and the horrendous and neurotic” (C. Leigh, ‘The Earrings of Madame B… : Louise Bourgeois and the Reciprocal Terrain of the Uncanny’, in J. Ekman, Louise Bourgeois, The Locus of Memory, Works 1982–1993, New York, 1994, p.58).

The present lot is one of Bourgeois’s most highly acclaimed sculptural forms. Nature Study exists as part of an edition of six in porcelain. The sculpture is exquisitely finished and was a technical challenge for the Sèvres porcelain factory (who have worked with a number of contemporary artists). The work is also part of a large and renowned series created in a variety of materials such as marble, bronze, wax and rubber. Examples of the Nature Study have been exhibited in major public collections, for instance at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Despite the multiple variations in form, material and scale that this sculpture has undertaken, in each version, Bourgeois consistently suggested that this sensuous, provocative sculpture was fundamentally aportrait of herself.

This sculpture is characterised by its ambiguities. Nature Study simultaneously embodies various states of being. Both fragmented and whole, fiercely animal and yet instinctively human, male and female; this is an enigmatic work. Employing what Bourgeois has termed ‘polarisation’, Nature Study illustrates an inherently unstable relationship between being and form. The form’s protruding breasts contradict the phallus between its spread haunches. The sculpture is deliberately set at eye level so its overt and multiple sexuality meets the viewer’s gaze. The ambiguities in Nature Study deepen as the bestial form, with its claws outstretched, also reveals a human vulnerability. Bourgeois’s desire for formal perfection, as with all her work, is driven by.

The headless figure of Nature Study suggests another theme that is an important motif woven throughout Bourgeois’s work, namely blindness. This state was deeply embedded in childhood memories that lie at the root of Bourgeois’s art. The artist herself described the origin of this theme: “blindness came from the blush I experienced at the side of the people around me, everybody … my father was promiscuous. Ihad to be blind to the mistress who lived with us. I had to be blind to the pain of my mother. I had to be blind to the fact I was a little bit sadistic with my brother. I was blind to the fact that my sister slept with the man across the street. I had an absolute revulsion of everybody – everything and everybody. Mostly for erotic reasons, sexual reasons” (Louise Bourgeois: Destruction of the Father/Reconstruction of the Father, London, 2000, p. 179).

Nature Study is an outstanding example of Louise Bouregois’s ability to bind form to content with both discipline and an extraordinary freedom and imagination. This is how her work can be both intensely private and public at the same time, and can be admired for its sheer beauty while remaining mysterious, even disquieting.
Artist Biography
Louise Bourgeois
French-American • 1911 - 2010
Known for her idiosyncratic style, Louise Bourgeois was a pioneering and iconic figure of twentieth and early twenty-first century art. Untied to an art historical movement, Bourgeois was a singular voice, both commanding and quiet.
Bourgeois was a prolific printmaker, draftsman, sculptor and painter. She employed diverse materials including metal, fabric, wood, plaster, paper and paint in a range of scale — both monumental and intimate. She used recurring themes and subjects (animals, insects, architecture, the figure, text and abstraction) as form and metaphor to explore the fragility of relationships and the human body. Her artworks are meditations of emotional states: loneliness, jealousy, pride, anger, fear, love and longing.
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Ο11

Louise Bourgeois

Nature Study

1996, cast 2004
biscuit porcelain
73 x 36 x 43 cm (28 3/4 x 14 1/8 x 16 7/8 in)
Stamped with initials, Sèvres mark, stamp-moulder initials, date and letter ‘LB2004 A’ on the reverse of the base. This work is from an edition of six plus two artist’s proofs and was produced by Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, Paris.

Estimate
£600,000 - 800,000

Sold for £713,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

10 October 2012
London

1
Wolfgang Tillmans
Freischwimmer #84
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡♠
Sold for £39,650
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2
Dan Colen
Happy Accidents, Happy Endings
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡
Sold for £145,250
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3
Adam McEwen
Dessau
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡♠
Sold for £121,250
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4
Rob Pruitt
Baby
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡
Sold for £97,250
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5
Jacob Kassay
Untitled
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £181,250
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6
Wade Guyton
Untitled
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 †
Sold for £169,250
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7
Christopher Wool
Untitled
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £361,250
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8
John Baldessari
Strobe Series/Futurist: Dog on Leash (for Balla)
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
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9
Robert Longo
Untitled (Long Tou)
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
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10
Sean Scully
Homo Duplex
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡♠
Sold for £601,250
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11
Louise Bourgeois
Nature Study
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000
Sold for £713,250
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12
Andy Warhol
Watches
Estimate £1,000,000 - 2,000,000 ‡
Sold for £1,004,450
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13
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol
GE Short Line & Reading
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
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14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Big Joy
Estimate £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 ‡
Sold for £2,617,250
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15
This lot is no longer available.
16
Andy Warhol
Mao Portfolio (set of 10)
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
Sold for £577,250
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17
Richard Prince
Untitled (Girlfriend)
Estimate £220,000 - 280,000 ‡
Sold for £223,250
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18
George Condo
Daphnée
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
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19
Damien Hirst
Sad Steps – Life Fulfilled
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡♠
Sold for £601,250
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20
Andreas Gursky
Rimini
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £421,250
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21
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild
Estimate £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £2,449,250
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22
Anselm Kiefer
Dein Haus ritt die finstere Welle
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ♠
Sold for £577,250
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23
Miquel Barceló
Sinonimies
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ♠
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24
Richard Prince
Mumbai after Dark
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡
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25
Enoc Pérez
Darlington Hotel, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico,
Estimate £140,000 - 180,000 ‡
Sold for £145,250
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26
Andreas Gursky
Hong Kong Stock Exchange (diptych)
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
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27
Robert Indiana
LOVE (Red faces Blue sides),
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
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28
Ugo Rondinone
DRITTERAPRILZWEITAUSENDUNDSIEBEN
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
Sold for £289,250
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29
Raqib Shaw
Death, Beauty & Justice
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
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30
Yayoi Kusama
Galaxy Red A,B,C
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000
Sold for £313,250
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31
This lot is no longer available.
32
Martin Kippenberger
S.Q.36/I.B.B.D. (Ich bin Besonders Doof)
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ♠
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33
Bill Viola
Ablutions
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £181,250
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34
Margherita Manzelli
Mr. Grigio
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £121,250
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35
Nigel Cooke
Drift
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡♠
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36
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
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37
Ged Quinn
Things are Exactly as they Seem
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡♠
Sold for £91,250
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

10 October 2012 London

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Provenance

Exhibited

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Louise Bourgeois

Ο11

Louise Bourgeois

Nature Study

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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10 October 2012
London