Adam's FINE ASIAN ART Part I 28th & Part II 29th June 2022

149 303 ÉMILE BOUDON (FRANCE AND VIETNAM, ACTIVE 19TH-20TH CENTURY) A bust - Portrait of a young Vietnamese boy 1920 A unique piece, conceived, sculpted and casted by the artist With a nice dark-brown patina with verdigris accents Signed on the back: ‘Sculpté et fondu par Émile Boudon’ (lit. ‘Sculpted and casted by Émile Boudon’) Dated on the back of the right arm: ‘1920’ Offered at auction together with a nice matching carved wooden stand H (stand excluded): 48 cm Notes: 1. Very little is known about Emile Boudon. What is clear is that he was a French sculptor that eventually went to Vietnam and combined his Western Academic culture with Vietnamese inputs thereby creating a few models of bronzes depicting Asian women. His two best-known pieces to date are a small bust of a Tonkinese girl (H: 22 cm, SOTHEBY’S Hong Kong, China, 2021-06-01/08, lot 2045, sold for €3,385) and a bust of a young Tonkinoise with her head turned (H: 32 cm, ART VALOREM, Paris, France, 2016- 05-23, lot 359), both dated to circa 1920. However, our bust has nothing to do with such pieces: firstly, it has been sculpted and casted by the artist himself, so it is a unique piece and arguably the artist’s masterpiece; secondly, its size is impressive (H: 48 cm); thirdly, it might be a portrait (though not yet identified) given the high-level of details, the facial features and expression, not a mere representation of a human type; fourthly, the patina is of high quality, caching the light and playing with matte and shiny. 2. Recently, a few bronze sculptures by French traveling artists that went to Vietnam have fetched strong prices at public auction. See a bronze by Évariste Jonchère (1892-1956) that achieved €58,500 (see AGUTTES, Paris, 2021-09-30, lot 36). € 40,000 - 60,000 +