modelled in 1924 cast in 1968-69
green patinated bronze
height: 53 cm. (20 7/8 in.)
signed and numbered 'Ch Orloff 1/8 ' on the back, lower right, French foundry stamp 'Susse Foundry Paris' on the back lower left


LITERATURE:
F. Marcilhac, 'Chana Orloff', Paris, 1991, pp. 76-77, no. 1 on p. 221, no. 81, plaster model illustrated, p. 77.
LOT NOTES:
The subject of the bust, Ludmilla Pito?ff, was a fascinating figure of Parisian society. Born Ludmilla Smanov in Tbilisi on December 25, 1895, Ludmilla married fellow actor Georges Pito?ff, a well known actor and producer of the French theatre, in Paris in 1915. Georges came from an illustrious and wealthy family of Armenian industrialists from Tbilisi who owned and operated "Pito?ff & Co.," a holding company specializing in oil exploration and refinement, as well as fish and caviar manufacturing. The original Pito?ff family was highly involved with the arts and quite influential, Georges' father being the director of the Tiflis Opera theatre and a major contributor to the rise of Feodor Chaliapin, who began his career in Tbilisi. In France, Georges and Ludmilla Pito?ff staged numerous theatrical productions of Shaw, Ibsen, and especially of Russian playwrights such as Chekhov, whose plays they effectively made a staple of French theatrical repertoire. Georges would produce and direct the productions, and Ludmilla would star in them. She was noted for her powerful stage presence. The writer Jean Nepveu-Degas, nephew of artist Edgar Degas, described Ludmilla in the following way after seeing her in a production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters," 'Le mince visage p?le, le regard d?vorant, la fr?le silhouette claire et la voix path?tique (trans: "The thin pale face, the ravenous gaze, the frail distinct silhouette and the voice full of pathos").