Rik Wouters often depicted his wife Nel, who was his favourite model. She appears in many portraits and drawings as a housewife or as a sleeping beauty, reading or doing the ironing. She takes a central place in his oeuvre and in the charming daily scenes that Wouters portrayed, but Wouters seldom portrayed her in so carefree and dynamic a manner as in this sculpture.

The immediate inspiration behind the sculpture was a performance by the American dancer Isadora Duncan, which so moved Wouters that he entertained the idea of creating a sculpture of a dancing figure. Naturally, it was obvious who would be the model for the sculpture. In no other work did Wouters match or seek the directness and dynamism, as well as the uncommon joy of life and ease that this work depicts. He made number of casts of ‘The Mad Maiden', which is sometimes also called The Foolish Virgin.

In his brief career, Rik Wouters created a large number of paintings, drawings and sculptures. He is Belgium’s most familiar Fauvist, known for using beautiful colours in his paintings, even though he considered himself primarily a sculptor. One of his self-portraits shows him wearing an eye patch: a chronic eye disease led to his death at a young age.

This object is part of "Scan The World". Scan the World is a non-profit initiative introduced by MyMiniFactory, through which we are creating a digital archive of fully 3D printable sculptures, artworks and landmarks from across the globe for the public to access for free. Scan the World is an open source, community effort, if you have interesting items around you and would like to contribute, email stw@myminifactory.com to find out how you can help.

Scanned : Photogrammetry (Processed using Agisoft PhotoScan)