For its summer exhibition, the Musée Maillol in Banyuls-sur-Mer will present a unique display dedicated to Aristide Maillol’s final work, *Harmonie* (1940–1944), a monumental sculpture left unfinished. It was in Banyuls, his native village, that the artist sought refuge in 1939, fleeing the turmoil of war. There, he embarked on this ambitious project with his model and muse, Dina Vierny, then twenty years old.

Maillol, who until then had sculpted “from imagination”, chose this time to work closely from life, in a pursuit of truth and sensuality previously unseen in his work. Each day, Dina posed for him—first at the studio in the “pink house”, then in his farmhouse nestled in the mountains—in a quiet dialogue between artist and model. The project became an obsession: torsos, standing figures, with or without heads or arms… Maillol began again and again, modifying, refining, searching for the perfect balance between idea and reality. “I sometimes redo everything ten times,” he admitted, worn down by the demands of the craft.

But this creation was also an adventure story. Dina, involved in resistance networks, sometimes vanished without warning. She was arrested, imprisoned, then released thanks to the intervention of Arno Breker… before returning to Banyuls to pose once more. The story of *Harmonie* became one with that of war and liberation. In August 1944, Dina left again to witness the Liberation of Paris. She would never see Maillol again—he died a month later in a car accident. *Harmonie* remained unfinished, yet stands as the culmination of a life devoted to the female form.

The exhibition brings together the four surviving states of the standing figure, two torsos, one head, drawings, paintings, photographs, and archival documents. Through this thoughtful and richly documented journey, the museum invites visitors to discover how, in the chaos of war, Maillol managed to give life to a sculpture both intimate, sensual, and serene—his ultimate masterpiece.