WORKSHOP OF BARTHELEMY PRIEUR (FRENCH, 1540-1611): A RARE BRONZE FIGURE OF A WOMAN CUTTING HER NAILS, EARLY 17TH CENTURY the nude seated on a draped stool and cutting the nails on her right foot, seemingly a solid cast, unfinished, 9.2cm high This intimate and touching bronze appears to be unfinished and is perhaps a working model. A finished cast of this statuette is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.24). The finished cast is a hollow cast, produced using the in-direct lost wax method, but with solid head, arms and lower legs which were probably formed free hand and joined to the rest of the figure. The three feet of the stool visible in our bronze have been removed from the finished cast, and without these feet the present bronze is the same size as the finished example. There is the remains of a sprue hole visible at her right hip and other small lumps of bronze such as at the end of the right foot which would have been removed and finished in the final cast. The bronze has been patinated and there are traces of black lacquer remaining over a mid brown patination which is consistent with Prieur's bronzes. Prieur and his workshop were known to have produced solid cast bronzes, for example that 'Man Carrying a Child' (The Blind Orion Guided by Cadalion) in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Inv. No. 24.212.12). Provenance: Private UK Collection.