Embracing Hands of Sarah Bernhardt and Louise Abbéma
(c. 1908)
Medium
bronze
Measurements
8.8 × 31.6 × 10.5 cm (overall)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, and M. G. Chapman Bequest, 2024
Gallery location
Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Louise Abbéma was twenty-one when she met Sarah Bernhardt, then thirty-one, in 1875. The two became fast friends and were bound together by art and theatre for the rest of their lives, Abbéma becoming Bernhardt’s official portraitist. Around 1908 Bernhardt and Abbéma had their hands, clasped together, cast as a bronze sculpture commemorating their many decades of friendship. Embracing hands is a rare bronze that appears to exist in only two versions (one for each of the models), which both women have signed. This example formerly belonged to Bernhardt.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Paris, France
Inscription
cast c.r.: Louise Abbema
cast in top c.l.: Sarah Bernhard
cast in left side c.r.: CIRE (underlined) / C. VALSUANI (LSU underlined) / PERDUE (all in a rectangle)
Accession Number
2024.4
Department
International Sculpture