Located in the Trocadéro Gardens in Paris, the marble sculpture Eve by the Polish sculptor Edward Wittig, whose bronze casts can be admired in the courtyard of the main building of the National Museum in Warsaw and in Warsaw's Ujazdowski Park, exudes monumentalism, solemnity and serenity in the spirit of the works of one of the most important artists of the era, Aristide Maillol.

History of the composition

Between 1911 and 1914, Wittig worked on the composition 'Eve'. The work, carved in marble, depicted the primordial woman engulfed in sleep, with her hand folded over her head. First presented to the public at the Salon de Mars in 1912, it received great acclaim from the public. The French poet and art critic of Polish origin, Guillaume Apollinaire, wrote: "Eve is an evocation of the giantess that came out of Baudelaire's imagination. It is a perfect expression of the new tendencies in sculpture, which wants to be an expression of lifestyle without breaking with nature."

Unveiling of the statue in the Trocadéro Gardens

In 1928, the French government purchased a stone version of 'Eve'. The unveiling ceremony of the monument in the Trocadéro Gardens on 12 June 1928 provided an opportunity to highlight good Polish-French political relations. The ceremony was attended by, among others, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Second Republic, August Zaleski, and the Polish ambassador to France, Alfred Chłapowski.

Description of the object

The marble sculpture, measuring 159 x 190 cm, depicts the naked, biblical 'Eve' immersed in sleep. The sensual composition of Eve, who is both the primordial mother and the personification of female fatalism and sin, echoes Cubism as well as artistic impulses stemming from the artist's fascination with antiquity and Classical art. The sculptor's choice of material and artistic means was influenced by the taille direct trend, popular on both sides of the ocean in the first half of the 20th century, which was accompanied by demands for the truth of the material and the necessity to develop appropriate manual skills.