Lot 620 D

'The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death,' Salome counters in the face of the beheaded John the Baptist. (Oskar Wilde, Salome, Reclam-Edition 1990, p.53). A profoundly devotional statement that fits in with a basic idea of the sculptor: the representation of his couples in alternating expression between Eros and Thanatos - as here? Close together, rather nestled into each other, the two figures kneel at the end of a large surface. This surface can be interpreted in various ways: as the open course of life, a free stretch of life that lies in front of the couple, or as an area on which the couple looks back in deep devotion? It is a holding together of two figures, a contraction and blending of two bodies of tightly intertwined lovers. Perhaps a reminiscence of August Rodin's preoccupation with the lovers Paola and Francesca can also be discovered here, based on the Frenchman scenes from Dante Alighieri's work 'Divine Comedy', allowing figures such as Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta to intimately embrace and kiss during different encounters.