Émile-Antoine BOURDELLE (Montauban, 1861 - Vésinet, 1929) Bust of a young girl, 1884 Terracotta Signed and dated on the lower right side: "Emile / Bourdelle / 1884 H. 46,8 ; W. 35 ; D. 17 cm Provenance: - Jean-Félix-Camille Langlade (1840-1902), Montalban collector and friend of the artist. - It has remained in his descendants until today. Related literature : Ionel Jianou, Michel Dufet, Bourdelle, Paris, Arted- Éditions d'art, 1965. This unpublished bust is a rare record of Antoine Bourdelle's early work before he completed his early studies in Toulouse in 1884 and went on to study at the École de Beaux-Arts in Paris under Alexandre Falguière. Between 1876 and 1884, while still a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, he returned regularly to his native Montauban, where he used the red clay extracted locally to model portraits of his relatives. In the corpus of his early and rare portraits, the bust of Pierre Laprade, the bust of Achille Bouis, his former teacher who became the curator of the Ingres museum, and our charming bust of a young girl, which remained in the family of Camille Langlade, one of his earliest collectors and friends, stand out among others. The Montauban media library has a series of photos taken by this same Camille Langlade in which the amateur photographer proudly poses in front of our bust.