Portrait of Vera Nimidoff: A bronze figure, after the model by Pierre-Nicolas Tourgueneff (1853-1912), 1907

brown patina, inscribed 'P.Tourgueneff '07'

The collects ion of the sitter

Thence by descent

Paris, Bibliothèque des Annales, Salon du Société des Artistes Français, 1908, no. 3682, titled 'Mademoiselle Vera Nimidoff, de l'Opera'

Very good condition. The join of the cast's right arm at the shoulder has become visible over t.mes . The parasol has been bent slightly, and its tip does not rest in its tiny hole on the base.
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Vera Nimidoff was a famed mezzo-soprano of the Paris Opéra, where she made her debut on 10 March 1900 in the role of Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette.  There she also sang Waltraute in Die Walküre and was the first Paris Cléanthis in Xavier Leroux's Astarté.  She later married a successful physician, Dr Louis Bour, co-founder of the Rueil-Malmaison Health Centre, and lived at 46, avenue Foch, where she presided over a salon of artists and writers.

The present lot is a rare society portrait by Tourgueneff, notable for the absence of any animal.