The Dying Slave (by Michelangelo)

Yves Klein

Klein, Yves

Niza, 1928 - París, 1962

The Dying Slave (by Michelangelo)

© Yves Klein, VEGAP, Madrid, 2015

Signed, titled and numbered 38/300 on the underside of the base
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
Location: Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid

Blue pigment and synthetic resin on plaster

58 cm

CTB.DEC98.1

Artwork history

  • Sotheby´s Auctions, London, lot 254, July 1998.

  • Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.

2014

L'ideal en el paisatge. De Meifrèn a Matisse i Gontxarova. Col·lecció Carmen Thyssen, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, fundació Privada Centre d'Art Col·lecció Catalana de Sant Feliu de Guíxols, p. 132, lám. p. 133

  • -Wember, P.: Yves Klein. Cologne, 1969, p. 98, n. S20 (Illustration of another cast).

  • -L’ideal en el paisatge. De Meifrèn a Matisse i Gontxarova. Col·lecció Carmen Thyssen. Giró, Pilar [ed.]. [Exhib. Cat.]. Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Fundació Privada Centre d’Art Col·lecció Catalana de Sant Feliu de Guíxols, 2014, p. 132, lám. p. 133 [Sheet by Pilar Giró]

  • -Colección Carmen Thyssen. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Ed. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2024. P. 362-363   [Sheet by  Clara Marcellán]

     

Expert report

In 1962 Yves Klein began to intervene in plaster models bought at the Louvre, such as the Venus of Cnidus, the Victory of Samothrace, or this Agonizing Slave (after Michelangelo). The counterpost and sensuality of the figures contrasts with the uniformity of the surface, which the artist the surface, which the artist covers with International Klein Blue, the ultramarine blue color he patented in 1957. The origin of this practice is to be found in his monochromatic paintings, which he began to produce around 1949.

The series in question, in which he appropriates great icons of art history, is preceded by others in which he covers in the same way elements taken from nature, such as sea sponges, planetary reliefs, or plaster casts of the bodies of artists and their acquaintances, such as his friend Arman.

After the unexpected death of the artist in June 1962, his widow authorized the mass production of this Dying Slave and other sculptures of his. In this way she put into practice one of Klein’s ideas: to create multiples in order to question the idea that the work of art is an exclusive object.

Clara Marcellán