Rosso’s subject wears a voilette, a veiled hat designed to offer protection against the dusty bustling streets of nineteenth-century Paris. The hat’s brim and the woman’s face and torso emerge from the wax-coated plaster and extend outward to suggest the air and space around her, revealing Rosso’s desire to make the still medium of sculpture render subjects in motion and over time. More supple and fugitive than bronze, melted wax was especially suited to Rosso’s aim to capture the experience of fleeting urban sights—in this case a passerby—and to infuse sculpture with “more air, more light, more space!”
Gallery label from 2019
