Antoine BOURDELLE completes a “Head of Apollo” and a monograph.

Antoine BOURDELLE (1861.1929)

Autograph letter signed to the architect Alfred Rome.

Two in-4° pages enhanced with orange-yellow and red watercolor.

No place. May 27, 1922.

" I'll have your case, Apollo's head […] A little gold to put in and we'll send it to you. "

A very beautiful letter from the sculptor teeming with artistic projects, finishing a head of Apollo and preparing his monograph.

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Dear friends, Rome. I'm going to have your Apollo head case, and my little friend Margaret will have the strong, willful face of the Sun God close by. Just a little gold to put in, and we'll send it to you.

What will soon appear is not what you thought. It will be a small book composed by me and in my handwriting bearing in beautiful woodcuts the reproductions of a bust – a statue – a mask and some sketches.

There you can start a library of my written work that I am undertaking to publish. I will let Dad subscribe to this little work. 20 or 30 francs. But I will send a signed one to my girlfriend. In this way I will achieve two goals: to help the publisher and to last in the little memory of your little spring. I give you good news from Root. He wrote to me from Marseille that he is very, very well. He is going to Switzerland. Let us hope he recovers because otherwise, what sadness. Flandrin exhibits very beautiful dedications, he is very appreciated by those who count among those who are alive in the art world. I salute Dr. Flandrin.

I hope that your tapestry always blends with the charm of its colorful wefts, bordered wefts adorned by your two daughters and that the son also completes with his good presence at least from time to time. Is he free from service? Poor Root. In the evenings, at your home with the devoted Farcy friends, with the mournful mimicry of the ardent artist that is A. Farcy. The salvation of Lhote. Rome architect tranquil as the eternal city […] Ant. Bourdelle.

I want you to be free for the Apollo at the Museum. I hope there will soon be another book published with a preface by me and two drawings. I will let you know. A new lecture on Art – from its origins to the present day – will be published later.

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The Head of Apollo is the culmination of a study begun by Bourdelle at the end of the 19th century, while he was still employed as an artist by Rodin. At this time, Bourdelle was searching for his own path, wishing to abandon the expressionist romanticism of his master. His Head of Apollo heralds the birth of his new style and his return to antiquity. The arrangement of the head on a faceted, asymmetrical base also heralds a new era. Copies of this work are held at the Bourdelle Museum, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.