Masker van een jonge Engelse vrouw / Masque de jeune femme anglaise

SYMB 6413

In the work of Khnopff, the ‘Mask of a Young English Woman’ is the first of very few sculpted representations of idealized or mythical feminine figures he created in the 1890s.

With the same sensibility which permeated his drawings, he modeled the timeless image of ideal English beauty, still, introverted and lost in dark thoughts. A narrow high collar clenches the delicate slender neck. The forehead is cut in the middle, so that a single lock suggests the model's hair.

Khnopff is a delicate drawer of fanciful and elusive chimeras, and his tridimensional works confirm it (from Francisca Vandepitte, in catalogue 'Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921)', Brussels, RMFAB, 2004, p. 168-169)

English Translation by Marianne Reynolds (2010)