In 1938, Aristide Maillol embarked on an ambitious commission
which ultimately became "La Rivière (The River)," his final masterpiece. The
unusual pose arose from the original terms of the commission, which was
intended to honor Henri Barbusse (1873 – 1935), noted author and pacifist. In
keeping with Barbusse’s anti-war sentiment, Maillol initially conceived the
figure as a woman who had been stabbed in the back, falling at the viewer’s
feet, arrested in agony. However, when funds proved to be insufficient to
complete the memorial, Maillol reconceived the figure as a more timeless theme,
the personification of a river.

The model for "La Rivière"
was the artist’s muse, Dina Vierny. Her son Bertrand Lorquin described the
work: “Monumentality does not
require to be looked up to, but simply to be looked at. This was a radically
new concept of the function of monumental sculpture, for it introduced a new
relationship between the statue and the viewer.”