sentasart:

vintagemaleeroticapart2:

Artist and his model.
Harry Count Kessler Aristide Maillol (French 1861-1944)  working on “The Cyclist” 
1907 – 1908

Le Cycliste, also called L’éphèbe [The Cyclist, also called, The Ephebe]

This statue represents the racing cyclist Gaston Colin. Like Mediterranean and Desire,
it was commissioned by the German count Harry Kessler, who was
Maillol’s first patron. With this statue, Kessler simply wanted to own a
full-length nude portrait of his companion.

Although Maillol mainly sculpted women, his work includes three male nudes: an Athlete, a Dying Warrior and this young Cyclist with
his slender body and fine muscle structure, consistent with the sport
practised by Gaston Colin. Few bronze versions were cast during the
artist’s lifetime. Kessler’s copy is now in the Kunstmuseum, Basel.

The stages that Maillol went through in developing this work, first
modelled in wax, are well documented. Kessler recorded his visits to the
studio in his diary and in 1907-1908 took photographs of the sculpture
in progress. Its realism is disconcerting, and even the patron found it
exaggerated! But the fact that the statue is smaller than life sized
dispels some of the embarrassment.

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/le-cycliste-305.html?no_cache=1&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bsword%5D=la%20pie&tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509%2C842%2C846%2C847%2C848%2C850&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5D=851&cHash=6a5aa5a93e