Water carrier, bronze sculpture by Carl Milles (1875-1955).
Born in Lagga, Sweden, he trained with an old carpenter in Stockholm and attended evening classes at the Technical School. There he learned the trade, but was also influenced by socialism. After three years of study, he won a prize and planned to go to Chile where a friend of his father's had made a fortune. He stopped in Paris, where he assiduously visited museums and fell in admiration of Puvis de Chavannes, Constantin Meunier and Rodin. He gradually made contacts in the art world and exhibited for the first time at the Salon of 1899. He then exhibited at the Salon des Artistes français, then at the Société Nationales des Beaux-Arts.
These Parisian years were years of privation and hard work, where he particularly admired Rodin.
From 1900 to 1904, Milles abandoned mythological subjects, which he would return to later, and became interested in the humble, the workers. A whole family of small bronzes was born, including this Water Carrier that we present. Tormented modeling, quivering impression, he infuses his subjects with a melancholic compassion.
Around 1910, he detached himself from Rodin's influence to develop his own sensibility; a career rich in monumental commissions followed, making him one of the greatest sculptors of his country, in the straight line of Sergel and Thorvaldsen.
