Curiosity - Sculpture - Bust Of A Man In Carved Monoxyl Wood - Inlaid Eyes - Folk Art

Late 19th century France – Massif Central, Auvergne Small bust of a man carved from a single block of wood, the work of a self-taught sculptor from the Massif Central towards the end of the 19th century. With its raw sincerity and silent presence, it embodies the spirit of rural folk art: that of a world where hand, matter, and memory were one. The face, of rare intensity, seems to emerge from the wood as if from living earth. The powerful features – prominent nose, marked forehead, closed mouth – convey a simple, almost meditative gravity. The eyes, encrusted with bone, give it a fixed, almost spectral gaze, which is as disturbing as it is fascinating. The bust represents an elderly, bald man with a drawn, melancholic face. The deliberately imperfect symmetry, the cracked forehead, and the contorted mouth create a strong, almost hallucinatory presence. We are far from the bourgeois portrait: this figure seems rather symbolic, perhaps introspective, between self-portrait, memory and meditation on old age. This raw expressiveness links the piece to the aesthetic of popular realism specific to certain sculptures from Auvergne and Forez at the end of the 19th century: faces marked by life, hard but profoundly human. The incrustation of the eyes accentuates this intensity and gives the whole an almost totemic or votive dimension, as if the sculpture embodied a presence or warded off absence. The technical clues—monoxyl sculpture, warm patina, radial cracks—and stylistic clues—accentuation of the nose, the brow ridges, the nasolabial fold—place the piece in the Massif Central, probably Haute-Loire or Cantal, around 1880–1900. This is probably the work of a craftsman or peasant sculptor, without academic aim, but guided by the gaze and the feeling. Each tool mark, each crack, becomes here a fragment of expression. An object of contemplation, of a sober intensity, this bust condenses in its small volume the memory of a vanished world - that of rural craftsmen for whom wood, carved with respect, still carried a soul. Condition: beautiful old patina, cracks of age, small wear of use. Dimensions: Height 13 cm ALL DELIVERIES ARE MADE BY DHL EXPRESS ONLY.