Recent Acquisition: "The Finishing Line (Au But)" by Alfred Boucher
Alfred Boucher (France, 1850-1934), The Finishing Line (Au But), circa 1890, bronze, 18 x 26 ¾ x 15 inches. Bequest of Eleanor G. Potter, 2021.6.10. Image courtesy of Luc Demers
Alfred Boucher’s sculpture The Finishing Line (Au But) depicts three athletes in the final moments of a race and is one of the French sculptor’s best-known works. When the model for this work was first exhibited at the Salon of 1886, it received widespread acclaim and was awarded a medal. The work was awarded an additional medal during the World’s Fair of 1889, the same year that the Eiffel Tower was unveiled to visitors from around the world. In light of these accolades, the French government commissioned a life-size cast for the Luxembourg Gardens. The widespread appreciation for The Finishing Line derived from the dynamic nature of the sculptural composition, in which three bodies propel forward, arms and legs outstretched. The sculpture is simultaneously a moment of action, as racers lunge for the finish line, and a moment of balance, with athletes posed on the balls of their feet. Viewed laterally, the sculptural group appears as dancers executing a complicated choreography. Upon closer inspection, the fierce facial expressions betray the competitive nature of the event, and bodies appear to tumble upon one another.
Boucher was a contemporary of French sculptor Auguste Rodin, and the grouping evokes the elder artist’s innovative sculptural groups. In The Three Shades (1881-86) Rodin assembled three casts of a single figure into slightly different rotated positions, bringing a sense of movement and harmony into the life-size grouping. Similarly, Boucher used the same model for each of the three figures in The Finishing Line: Gabriel Bonvalot, a French explorer who traveled to Central Asia in the 1880s. The uniformity and articulation of the faces and bodies corresponded to an ideal of masculinity that dated back to antiquity, when sculptures of the nude male body appeared across ancient Greek and Roman landscapes as emblems of strength and beauty. Boucher’s sculpture was made in several reduced versions for wider public sale in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The life-size version in the Luxembourg Gardens was destroyed during the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II.
—Shalini Le Gall, Chief Curator, Susan Donnell and Harry W. Konkel Curator of European Art