Slave

When the plaster model was destroyed, Gargallo chiseled the first bronze example that he had already cast and turned it into the original model.

At the moment of transition between the middle of lead and the second era of copper, coinciding with the obligatory end of his teaching activity and just before returning to Paris, Pablo created several classicist pieces of admirable synthesis and extraordinary formal beauty: the Bather ( head lowered), 1924 - since we cannot be sure if the second version, Bather (head raised), 1924, was finished then or somewhat later -, and this exciting and almost lyrical Slave, nudes of very refined workmanship -in those of us who cannot fail to observe certain Noucentista connotations, especially in the exuberant bathers - which had been preceded by the also delicious nude, male and adolescent, from Torso de gitanillo, 1923, and would be followed in 1925 by the beautiful vitality of the Aguadoras, forming a small set of pieces very representative of Gargallo's personal and unmistakable classicist language, which already manifests the full maturity of the complex, and apparently simple, perfectionism developed in that field throughout the following decade.