Gallery Chenel is a family business that is driven by a passion for sculpture. It specializes in archaeological objects, with particular emphasis on Roman arts.
Established in Paris in 1999, the gallery has grown over the years and it has settled on Quai Voltaire, opposite the Louvre Museum, where it has fitted a modern exhibition space, a shrine for antique pieces.
Galerie Chenel prides itself of offering objects of taste and quality. Expertise and attention to provenance, in order to give customers a full guarantee of authenticity, are primary to the gallery. Its professionalism ensures that all acquisitions can be made with confidence.
The gallery counts among its clients’ curators as well as passionate collectors, decorators and art lovers. It has sold ancient sculptures to some of the world’s most important institutions, such as the Louvre Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, the British Museum and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Galerie Chenel is a member of the Syndicat National des Antiquaires and IADAA (International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art).
Koré
Roman, 1st century BC – 1st century AD
Marble
Height: 37 cm
Width: 21 cm
Depth: 11 cm
Provenance
On the Swiss art market since the late 1960s:
– Sotheby’s auction, London, ‘Egyptian, Western Asiatic, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities’, 1 July 1969, lot 119.
– Formerly in an English private collection.
– Private collection of Helmut Gernsheim (1913–1995), London and Lugano.
– Fischer Auctions, Lucerne, 12 June 2013, lot 4081.
– Formerly in the collection of Dr Sylvia Legrain-Gerschwyler (1936–2022), Wabern, Switzerland.
This work depicts a young woman standing upright, sculpted frontally, belonging to the type of kore—female statues from ancient Greece. The richness of the sculpture lies in the treatment of the drapery: the figure wears a peplos, a woolen garment layered over a lighter tunic called a chiton.
The folds of the fabric, highly detailed, vary between horizontal, vertical, and diagonal forms, creating a sense of realism and subtly suggesting the body’s shape without fully revealing it. The artist successfully conveys the movement of the fabric, particularly around the legs and arms, which are now only partially preserved.
The back of the sculpture is simpler, yet still enlivened by delicate folds. The whole piece is marked by a patina on the marble, bearing witness to the passage of time and enhancing the artwork’s aesthetic quality.
From a historical perspective, korai appeared between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE in Archaic Greece. They were generally offered in sanctuaries or placed on tombs. Their style, initially rigid and decorative, gradually evolved toward greater naturalism.
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