Bronze centerpiece with a brown and green patina, featuring a double basin and a naiad motif, by Auguste Ledru, circa 1900.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, artists fully embraced the decorative arts, blurring the boundaries between the arts. This centerpiece by Auguste Ledru fully embodies this sensibility: a nude naiad dominates an asymmetrical composition where shells, rock, and vegetation seem to emerge from a single natural impulse, in a spirit typical of Art Nouveau.
Auguste Ledru (1860–1902) belonged to a generation of sculptors who actively contributed to the renewal of French decorative arts. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he began exhibiting at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français in 1883, where he received an honorable mention in 1892.
His work focuses on female figures, nymphs, and naiads adorning the vases, ewers, and bowls he created for foundries such as Susse or Thibéaut Frères.
The central element was filled in at a later date.
