Female Dog, 1955

In the mid-Thirties, Apartis turned his interest to the making of animal sculpture, studying at the Paris Zoological Garden. Occupied since then, from time to time, with the same subject, in 1955 he made “Female Dog”, using “Duchess”, the dog of a neighbor in Paris, as his model.

The animal, despite the fact it’s motionless, gives the impression of being in a state of complete preparedness, with its pricked ears and muzzle jutting. Guided by ancient art, but having a living model before him as well, Apartis did not expend himself in descriptive details, but moulded a sturdy body with smooth surfaces, under which is outlined the powerful skeleton. The animal’s pose, with its legs parallel to each other, the slight turn of the head to the right and the tail touching the legs, as well as the moulding of the sturdy body itself, bring to mind one of the most important works of ancient art, namely the Etruscan “She-Wolf” in the Capitoline Museum (500-480 BC), while the jutting head had its, albeit distant, model of a dog from the Sanctuary of Artemis in Vravrona (530-520 BC), now in the Acropolis Museum, which, with its body tensed and its legs spread, is ready to attack.