Signed: POUPELET

Underneath: Fragments of a label from an exhibition in Prague in 1931

Jane Poupelet is a highly talented artist, with a strong character. She had feminist views and was committed to various causes. She is still little known to the general public, although she was widely recognized and celebrated during her lifetime in Europe and the United States.

She was part of the movement that marked the revival of animal art in the early 20th century and, in the early 1930s, formed a new society of animal artists with François Pompon: the ‘Groupe des XII’. Without any detours or anecdotal details, the figure of the foal is treated in its pure form, with clean, taut lines and highly structured planes. It offers a universal representation of the animal, in the manner of the Egyptians. Exhibited for the first time in 1907 at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d'Automne, this small donkey was an immediate success and became the artist's flagship animal work. The bronze we are presenting here is the one exhibited in 1931 at the National Museum in Prague as part of the “L'École de Paris” exhibition.