Luxury (Original Work) by Josefina Herz
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Dry pastel, graphite and color pencil on 100% recycled Toned Tan paper
Dimensions: 46 x 61 cm
Year: 2025
Price: $850.00 USD
Status: available
I transform the strength and subtlety of the animal kingdom into a visual luxury, where nature becomes art. The leopard, the protagonist of this collection, embodies that dual nature: the wild and the refined. Since ancient times, its skin was reserved for rituals and high status—in Egypt, it dressed priests as an emblem of the divine, and in West Africa, it became an insignia of kings and warriors. Today, its image continues to resonate as a symbol of exclusivity and power—a luxury that transcends the material and anchors itself in the realm of the symbolic. In every stroke, animal beauty is elevated into an aesthetic experience that invites you to contemplate the untamed as a visual treasure."
Why collect this work?
A tightly contained leopard and its looping tail turn naturalistic description into a tension between living body and decorative pattern.
- Herz states that animals anchor her practice and that realism can shift toward abstraction. Here, the rosettes describe volume but also gather into a dense field of repeated marks.
- The photograph shows the seated leopard pressed toward the right edge, its head turned across a broad, bare ground. The tail curves through that vacancy, balancing the composition while preserving the animal’s self-contained posture.
- The documented dry pastel, graphite and colour pencil allow soft shading to meet sharper contours. Against the tan recycled paper, pale fur and whiskers appear through contrast rather than a fully worked setting.
- The catalogue title, Luxury, frames the leopard’s coat as both bodily surface and ornament. The work is pertinent to collections examining how images of animals can convert wildness into visual refinement without entirely suppressing physical presence.
About the Artist
Josefina Herz
Josefina Herz is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Navidad, CL.
Nationality: Argentine
Animals are at the center of my practice, not only because of the emotions they evoke in me, but because they offer a powerful way to explore...
