Robert Sarlin (c. 1900) - Beatrice's Hand

- Marble. Signed. 

- Marble is not merely a cold mineral torn from the earth’s depths; it is the silent canvas upon which pure thought crystallizes, the Golden Fleece of sculptors that defies the fleeting tyranny of the flesh. On its immaculate surface, devoid of pulsation yet laden with a painful eternity, mortals finally catch a glimpse of the elusive world of pure ideas. It is the material chosen by the gods to tame the immaterial, the bridge of silence spanning the Platonic Idea and human melancholy. And, at the heart of this temple of shadows and decadent splendor, she stands: the brutal, implacable perfection of this Florentine lady’s hand. It is not a limb sculpted for earthly labors, but a relic from secret altars, a fragment of marble that seems to exhale a sigh from the afterlife. It is the hand of Dante’s Beatrice, the one who, one day, crossed the Ponte Vecchio transfigured by a supernatural light, leaving Florence in a state of awe at her unattainable grace. Each phalanx, chiseled with the precision of a goldsmith, possesses the unsettling accuracy of a mystical theorem. It gazes upon us from its sovereign stillness, reminding us that true beauty hurts, for it is perfect, absolute, and incorruptible. In this block of stone sculpted by nostalgia, flesh has become marble, and the marble, at last, has become spirit.

- 37 cm wide.