(Brussels 1934–2005 Monaco)
La robe du Temps, 2000, fossilized Moroccan stone, no. 3/3 from an edition of 3 + 1 E. A., 181 x 36 x 28 cm

A certificate of the Folon Foundation will be given to the buyer.

Provenance:
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Florence, Forte Belvedere and Palazzo Vecchio, Folon, 12 May – 20 October 2005, exh.cat. Notice 195, p. 254 (Text: Marilena Pasquali)
Florence, Forte di Belvedere and Sala d'Arme di Palazzo Vecchio 2005. Folon. La mia Firenze. exh. cat. 12 May - 20 October 2005, p.76 (Pasquali, Marilena (ed.))

Literature:
Guy Gilsoul, Folon. Sculptures. Ghent, Snoeck. 2008., p. 257

La Robe du Temps (The Dress of Time) a stone rendering of one of Folon's most emblematic sculptures, Femme-Oiseau, which he created in bronze in 1993 and has exhibited many times. Folon said that he had fallen in love with a small prehistoric sculpture from the Cyclades and would visit it while he was preparing his exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This bird-headed woman with her arms clasped around her waist is the artist’s tribute to the distant and ancient idol. It is one of the rare depictions of a woman in Folon's work.

Jean-Michel Folon (1934-2005) turned to monumental statuary in the 1990s, first in bronze and then, from 1996, in stone. He chose spectacular stones that are not usually used in sculpture, such as this stone encrusted with fossils from the Moroccan desert. Folon seeks to create a dialogue between the sculpted form and the graphic pattern of the stone with this highly personal approach to raw material. This stone is characterised by details, stratifications and veins that are invisible when the block of stone is selected at the quarry, and only revealed as the stone is cut. It is only at the end of the process, when the work is completely free of its stone gangue, that the sculpture's surface is revealed, the surprise being left until the end of the work. This approach recalls Folon's watercolour technique, in which the pigments are allowed to mingle freely, carried by the water, without the artist having any real control over the final result.
La Robe du Temps was shown at the artist's last, prestigious, exhibition held in Florence in 2005.