http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/ en-en PrestaShop Blog Module http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/42-Italian-Sculpture-:-17th-century Italian Sculpture : 17th centuryItalian Sculpture17th centuryThe phenomenal range and popularity of the statuettes of Giambologna provided his followers with a ready source of income and an incentive to continue the tradition. Pietro Tacca's contribution is unclear, but he may have been responsible for alternative compositions of the Labours of Hercules (e.g. Chicago, IL, A. Inst.), on a larger scale than his master's original series; Tacca's son Ferdinando Tacca branched away from Giambologna's style, making a series of groups with two figures to be seen primarily from the front, rather than in the round. Likewise, Antonio Susini was succeeded by his nephew Francesco Susini, who, apart from reusing the old piece-moulds to supply the continuing demand for Giambologna's subjects, invented several important new compositions, notably a pair depicting Venus and Cupid (Paris, Louvre; Vaduz, Samml. Liechtenstein) and in 1626 his dramatic masterpiece, the Rape of Helen (versions, Dresden, Skulpsamml.; Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.).The advent of the Baroque in the persons of Bernini and Algardi gave rise to a new source of statuettes, the original working models of a sculptor, for these might be preserved by casting into bronze, thus disseminating knowledge of their monumental commissions and providing a subsidiary source of income. Bernini's monument for Countess Matilda (Rome, St Peter's) and Algardi's Virgin and Child (New York, A. Gregory priv. col.) were so reproduced, alongside their designs for crucifixes and saints. The surfaces of such statuettes deliberately tended to retain the look of spontaneous modelling and were not chased as highly as Florentine examples. While nearly all of the Italian Baroque sculptors of the 17th century made some statuettes, none became a specialist, and it seems that collectors' tastes may have been altering.   2010-11-15 08:51:36 GMT 42 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/41-Italian-Sculpture-:-16th-century. Italian Sculpture : 16th century.Italian Sculpture16th century.(a) Florence and Rome.Less attention was paid to the production of statuettes during the High Renaissance, because of Michelangelo's obsession with marble statuary. Nevertheless, some of his models (notably Samson Slaying Two Philistines; Rotterdam, Mus. Boymans-van Beuningen) were copied by others in bronze. Furthermore, Leonardo da Vinci and his close associate Giovanni Francesco Rustici were interested in the medium, because of its relationship to the modelled, rather than carved, sculpture that they practised. Francesco da Sangallo also produced a notable statuette of St John the Baptist (New York, Frick).With the departure of Michelangelo from Florence in 1534, artists again turned to the statuette as a valid branch of sculpture and one suited to the aims of the Medici, by then established as dukes, for it provided a link with their 'democratic' forebears, as well as handsome ornamentation for their private studies and agreeable and prestigious diplomatic gifts. Such rivals of Michelangelo as Baccio Bandinelli and Benvenuto Cellini produced excellent statuettes in the Mannerist idiom c. 1540, while his followers of the younger generation, Niccolo Tribolo and Pierino da Vinci, also created notable examples. Still younger sculptors who came to maturity around the date of Michelangelo's death in 1564, for example Giovanni Bandini, Valerio Cioli, Bartolomeo Ammanati and Vincenzo Danti, all famous for their monumental contributions to the decoration of the city of Florence, were also capable of brilliant work on a small scale (e.g. in the studiolo of Francesco I de' Medici in the Palazzo Vecchio.) They were active at the period when Giambologna made his momentous appearance on the Florentine art scene and perfected the bronze statuette as a medium of sculptural expression. He addressed a far wider range of subjects than had his predecessors, extending his repertory beyond the standard nude figures of Classical deities (e.g. Mercury, Bologna, Mus. Civ.; or Astrology, Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) to struggling groups, for example the Labours of Hercules series (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.;, or equestrian ones (e.g. Nessus Abducting Deianeira, San Marino, CA, Huntington Lib. & A.G.; Dresden, Skulpsamml.). He portrayed real people, animals and country-folk, with a positively Breughel-like delight (e.g. The Fowler, Paris, Louvre); and treated a number of religious themes, notably the crucified Christ. For compositional subtlety, sensuous tactile values and sheer technical virtuosity, Giambologna's statuettes have never been surpassed. Diffused as diplomatic gifts by his patrons, and later through purchase by collectors, they spread his style all over Europe.In Rome, meanwhile, the principal exponent of high-quality statuettes was Guglielmo della Porta, who produced several designs of crucifixes and a Christ in Limbo (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). Leone Leoni, the Milanese sculptor and goldsmith, also executed a number of statuettes, sensitively modelled in the wax before casting and then carefully chased.(b) North Italy.Several little-known goldsmiths and sculptors contributed to the success of the bronze statuette in North Italy in the first third of the 16th century, notably Viltor Camelio, Maffeo Olivieri, Desiderio da Firenze, Antonio Lombardo, Francesco da Sant'Agata and Giovanni Fonduli da Crema (e.g. Seated Nymph, London, Wallace). Their collected oeuvre represents an important and characteristic, though all too often neglected, aspect of High Renaissance art. Thus, when Jacopo Sansovino arrived in Venice after 1527, he found a thriving artistic tradition and technical infrastructure at his disposal, which he utilized chiefly for narrative reliefs and statuettes, as these could be modelled rapidly in wax and the tedious process of casting and chasing delegated to juniors: for the altar-rail in S Marco he made the Four Evangelists. He also signed a group of the Virgin and Child (Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.). It was really left to Jacopo's numerous assistants to benefit from the tradition, chief among whom was Alessandro Vittoria, who found statuettes to be an ideal vehicle for his combination of Michelangelesque muscularity with Sansovino's suaver, Raphaelesque modelling and the Mannerist elongation and spiralling poses of Parmigianino, some of whose works he owned: his work ranges in size and subject from a signed St Sebastian (New York, Met.) down to little figures of Winter (versions, c. 1585; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.; Toronto, Royal Ont. Mus.), an old man muffled up in heavy robes. Others of Jacopo's immediate circle, Tiziano Minio and Danese Cattaneo, also produced statuettes, often depicting Classical marine deities, for example Minio's Neptune (London, V&A) and Cattaneo's Venus Marina (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). The Campagna brothers and Nicolò Roccatagliata, Francesco Segala and Tiziano Aspetti are all credited with the production of an amazing range of statuettes and other types of bronze domestic artefacts. The dearth of such objects produced in other Italian centres suggests that the Venetians gained a virtual monopoly over the manufacture and distribution of such useful items throughout the peninsula; this lasted well into the 17th century and probably even later, as such items were easy to reproduce from moulds and did not demand quite the degree of finish of statuettes proper. In Milan a similar repertory of ornamental bronzes was produced by Annibale Fontana.   2010-11-15 08:51:12 GMT 41 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/40-Italian-Sculpture-:-15th-century Italian Sculpture : 15th centuryItalian Sculpture15th century.(a) Central Italy.During the Renaissance the sculptor's repertory was increased by the revival of the bronze statuette. Ancient Greek, Roman or Etruscan votive figures of deities and animals showed how attractive and durable such small bronze figurines could be, as well as providing a source of imagery and showing how the nude could be rendered. The only things akin to such statuettes in the Middle Ages had been figures that were integral components of religious precious metalwork (e.g. images of the Virgin and St John to flank crucifixes), and so their early history is tentative: statuettes gradually emerged from such quasi-architectural contexts as small niches on shrines to become free-standing objects of art in their own right. They adorned the desks and libraries of such humanists as Cosimo de' Medici and Piero I de' Medici and were made for practical purposes (e.g. as paperweights) or to adorn lamps or inkstands or simply as miniature representations of things dear to the owner-famous antiquities, patron saints, handsome men and women or horses.The attraction of the small-scale and domestic commission for artist and patron alike was that pagan subjects and Classical nudity were acceptable (which they were not at this stage in monumental, and therefore public, sculpture). The earliest datable examples come from the workshop of Donatello and Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, probably being cast by Maso di Bartolommeo. None, however, is by the hand of the master, although works attached to a feature in an architectural context, for example the putti on the font in Siena Cathedral (c. 1416-31; in situ), prove that Donatello was perfectly capable of making statuettes. His followers all over Italy, however, rapidly made up for his omission: Bertoldo di Giovanni and Antonio Pollaiuolo are famed for this type of work, each producing masterpieces on a miniature scale (e.g. the former's Bellerophon and Pegasus, c. 1483; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.; see Bertoldo di giovanni; and the latter's Hercules and Antaeus, c. 1475-80; Florence, Bargello.Specialists in statuettes also emerged to meet the increasing demand for these artefacts (e.g. Adriano Fiorentino and Desiderio da Firenze). Andrea del Verrocchio's Putto and Dolphin (late 1460s-early 1470s; Florence, Pal. Vecchio), though not quite a statuette (h. 670 mm), inspired generations of sculptors who specialized in statuettes (e.g. Giambologna). In Siena, following Donatello's two periods of activity there, such sculptors as Vecchietta and Francesco di Giorgio Martini also worked on a small scale in bronze. While as early as the 1440s in Rome, Antonio Filarete made an important contribution with his splendidly modelled reduction (1440-45; Dresden, Skulpsamml.) of the Classical equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius and another showing Hector (c. 1458-60; Madrid, Mus. Arqueol. N.), also on horseback.(b) North Italy.Bronze statuettes seem first to have been produced in the north of Italy to supplement the antiquities that were then being excavated and avidly collected. The mania for collecting seems to have been strongest in this region, inspired by the humanism of the University of Padua, and perhaps because antiquities from the Byzantine Empire were available through the maritime network of Venice, especially after the fall of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1452. The genuinely Renaissance statuette evolved out of this minor industry of copying or faking, hence the penchant for subjects from Classical mythology; nevertheless, the work of the earliest true specialist in statuettes, Bartolomeo Bellano, is predominantly religious in its subject-matter, for example David with the Head of Goliath (version, New York, Met.) or St Jerome with the Lion (Paris, Louvre).Bellano encouraged such able pupils as Andrea Riccio and, perhaps, Severo da Ravenna. Severo was the next great sculptor specializing in bronze in Padua; his repertory extended from figures to domestic artefacts, and his oeuvre has now been disentangled from that of Riccio: most famous are Severo's group of Neptune and a Dragon (New York, Frick) and a variety of satyrs, but he also produced statuettes of saints (e.g. St John the Baptist, Oxford, Ashmolean; and St Sebastian, Paris, Louvre). Riccio, arguably the most gifted exponent of the statuette in the whole Renaissance, recreated for his intensely intellectual patrons in the University of Padua a series of Classical nymphs, satyrs, handsome nude shepherd boys, animals and monsters, as well as weirdly shaped lamps, grotesque masks and even erotica. All were imbued with a nervous vivacity, conveyed by his subtle modelling in the wax, conscientious chasing of every detail and hammering of every exposed surface.The Paschal Candlestick (1507-16; Padua, S Antonio; is Riccio's masterpiece, and the repertory that it provides, even-surprisingly-of mythological figures, enables the attribution to this artist of many other similar independent statuettes that are neither signed nor documented. Andrea Riccio's style is quite unlike the angular, agonized style of Bellano and reverts to a canon of slim, well-proportioned figures, normally of calm, Classical demeanour, very intellectually conceived and deeply spiritual.A completely different interpretation of antiquity had meanwhile appeared in Mantua, at the court of the Gonzaga, introduced by the bronze sculptor Piero Jacopo Alari, nicknamed 'Antico' from his penchant for direct copies of Classical statuary, by contrast with Riccio's free variations. Antico burnished the surfaces of his nude figures to a high polish, blackened and then partially gilded them, sometimes even inlaying their eyes with silver. These luxury products appealed to such demanding, princely patrons as Ludovico Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este. 2010-11-15 08:50:50 GMT 40 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/39-Sculpture-from-Antiquity-to-Present-Day Styles of Sculpture from Antiquity to Present DayStyles of Sculpture from Antiquity to Present Day Mesopotamian    Sumerian c. 3500-2500 BC   Akkadian c. 2340-2180 BC   Babylonian c. 2125-1750 BC   Assyrian c. 1000-612 BC   Persian c. 539-331 BCEgyptian    Prehistoric Pre-3200 BC   Early Dynastic c. 3100-2686 BC   Old Kingdom c. 2686-2040 BC   Middle Kingdom c. 2040-1650 BC   New Kingdom c. 1550-1070 BC   Third Intermediate c. 1075-665 BC   Late Period c. 664-332 BC   Ptolemaic Period c. 332-30 BC   Roman Period c. 30 BC-AD 642Aegean    (Cycladic, Minoan & Mycenaean) c. 3000-1000 BC Greek    Sub-Mycenaean/Early Iron Age c. 1100-900 BC   Geometric 900-700 BC   Orientalizing 700-600 BC   Archaic 600-480 BC   Classical 480-320 BC   Hellenistic 323-31 BCEtruscan c. 753-380 BC Roman    Republican 509-27 BC   Julio-Claudian 27 BC-AD 68    Trajanic AD 98-AD117   Hadrianic AD 117-AD 138   Antonine AD 138-193   Severan AD 193-211Byzantine (Early, Middle, Late) 330-1453Medieval 500-1000Romanesque 1050-1200Gothic (Early, High, Late, International Style) 1140-1420Italian Renaissance (Early, High) 1400-1520Northern Renaissance 1420-1550Mannerism 1520-1600Baroque 1600-1750Rococo 1720-1750Neoclassicism 1775-1815Romanticism 1775-1840Impressionism 1860-1886Post-Impressionism 1880-1895Abstract 1907-1930Cubism 1907-1925Futurism 1909-1914Dada 1915-1922Surrealism 1924-1945Contemporary 1950- 2010-11-15 08:50:26 GMT 39 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/38-Prix-de-Rome Prix de RomePrix de RomeTerm applied to the premier student prize awarded by the successive state-sponsored academies in Paris. The successful painter, sculptor or architect was able to study at the Académie de France in Rome for three to five years. The Prix de Rome originated in two competitions for drawing held in 1663 at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture to stimulate rivalry between pupils and thereby invigorate the Académie's ailing teaching system. In 1664 Jean-Baptiste Colbert overhauled the Académie's statutes. Article XXIV stipulated that an annual prize was to be awarded for representations of 'the heroic actions of the King': the initial 'Prix Royal' was won by Pierre Mosnier with Jason Capturing the Golden Fleece (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.), in which Louis XIV is shown as Jason.There was no connection between the prize and the city of Rome until 1666, when the 'Académie de France à Rome' was established so that students might study approved examples of Classical and Renaissance art and produce high-quality copies of paintings and sculpture to be sent back to France to decorate the royal palaces. Thus, copying was from the start a major part of a pensionnaire's duties. The Grand Prix de Rome Architecture, which provided similar opportunities, was founded in 1720 by the Académie Royale d'Architecture. Provision was made for six painters, four sculptors and two architects to stay in Rome, although the inferior status of sculpture is indicated by the failure to appoint a single sculptor as Director of the Académie de France. During the 19th century, by which time responsibility had passed to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, numbers were increased to 20. The prizes continued to be awarded until 1968.Under the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, the fortunes of the Prix went through various stages: a glorious era that lasted until Colbert's death in 1683, a period of stagnation and decline until the mid-18th century and a revival during the Neo-classical age. From 1674 subjects for the Prix were always taken from the Bible or ancient history, and the title 'Prix Royal' ceased. The status of the Prix became closely linked to official attitudes to history painting. As Chancellor of the Académie (1663-90), Charles LeBrun exercised considerable influence over the conduct of the competition. In 1674 a preliminary trial, consisting of a study from a male model, was introduced to weed out weaker competitors. The finalists, numbering ten at most, then had ten weeks to complete their works, which had to measure 1.14×1.46 m each. Each competitor had a small competition cell (loge) that would ensure secrecy and prevent cheating. Except for such minor adjustments as the introduction in 1768 of another preliminary test, a painted sketch of a historical subject known as an académie, the operation of the Prix changed little over the next hundred years. During this time the prize became known as 'le Grand Prix' or 'le Prix de Rome'. Conditions for its award reached their lowest point during the first two decades of the 18th century. In 1701 all entries were declared too weak, and the award was temporarily suspended. Lack of funds caused the competition to be cancelled in 1706-8, 1714 and 1718-20. This decline can be linked to a change in academic doctrine and a belief that it was unnecessary for the winner to work in Rome. A corresponding decline in the status of history painting had ramifications that were felt in the teaching system.Changes in official policy through the Direction des Bâtiments du Roi led to the rejuvenation of history painting and of the Prix after 1750. State patronage was now ensured for the tremendous expenses involved in history painting, encouraging young artists to compete. From the late 1760s to the French Revolution almost every notable Neo-classical painter in France won the Prix: François-André Vincent (1768), Joseph-Benoît Suvée (1771), David (1774), Jean-Baptiste Regnault (1776), Jean-Germain Drouais (1784) and Anne-Louis Girodet (1789). Of these, Drouais' success was the most spectacular and critically acclaimed. David and his followers played a major role in the history of the Prix. He encouraged his pupils to compete, and this resulted in fierce rivalry among them, culminating in 1787, when François-Xavier Fabre denounced Girodet for cheating. A year earlier, the Académie had annulled the Prix, detecting a 'similarity of styles' among the entries. The 'style' in question was undoubtedly that learnt from David.When the Académie was abolished in 1793, the Prix was not totally eradicated. It was at first transformed into a travel scholarship and was then reinstated in 1797, after the Institut de France and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts had replaced the Académie and its school. Owing to political uncertainties, however, trips to Rome were not guaranteed. David's pupils again assumed dominance: Fulchran-Jean Harriet won the prize in 1798, Ingres in 1801 and Joseph-Denis Odevaere in 1804. In fact, from 1784 until about 1820 most winners were pupils from the studios of David, Regnault or Vincent: Antoine-Jean Gros and Girodet had studied with David, Pierre Guérin with Regnault and later François-Edouard Picot with Vincent and David. Under the Institut, entry for the Prix was open to unmarried Frenchmen under the age of 30. Each candidate had first to paint a trial sketch and then an académie, after which eight or ten students were selected to pass into the final competition. They were set a historical subject and had 72 days to complete their picture. In 1816 another prize for painting was inaugurated, this time for historical landscape. It was first awarded in 1817, then only once every four years until 1863.Developments in the framework of French art influenced the status of the Prix. Certain artists-Delacroix for example-did not bother to compete, and many critics questioned the relevance of such a prize. By 1840 the system of competition based on the categories of Classical, mythological and biblical subjects was somewhat dated, and in 1863 Viollet-Le-Duc observed that the quality of the painted entries was getting weaker and that all semblance of originality had been lost. Despite these shortcomings, the Prix was still a key stage in the development of the careers of almost every major academic artist and was an important proving ground for such future artistes pompiers as Alexandre Cabanel, who won second place in 1845, and William Bouguereau, who won in 1850. Gradually, the Prix was viewed as an irrelevant anachronism. In the 20th century the winning entries were conservative, owing in part to their subject-matter. As late as 1933 and 1934, Susanna and the Elders and Ulysses and Calypso were being set. It was not until 1961 that an abstract painting won the prize: the Marriage of Heaven and Earth (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.) by Joel Moulin (b 1935). By then, the Prix was thought to have outlived its usefulness, although it continued to exist until 1968, when André Malraux, Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, finally abolished it.The 'golden age' of the Prix de Rome was undoubtedly that of the late 18th century and early 19th, a time when history painting was encouraged and an elaborate and competitive studio system was in operation. At its best, the Prix stimulated emulation and rivalry among gifted and precocious pupils whose training had been geared to winning this honour. But with shifts in the dynamics of patronage and taste, the days of the Prix were numbered. BIBLIOGRAPHYA. Lemaistre: L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts dessinée et racontée par un élève (Paris, 1889) C. Saunier: Les Grands Prix (Paris, 1896) Les Cinquante Derniers Premiers Grands Prix de Rome (exh. cat., Antibes, Mus. Picasso, 1977) D. D. Egbert: The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture, Illustrated by the Grands Prix de Rome (Princeton, 1980) A. M. Wagner: 'Learning to Sculpt in the Nineteenth Century: An Introduction', The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth Century Sculpture (exh. cat., ed. H. W. Janson and P. Fusco; Los Angeles, CA, Co. Mus. A., 1980), pp. 9-20 P. Grunchec: Les Concours des Prix de Rome de 1797 à 1863, 2 vols (Paris, 1983-9) S. Lee: Jacques-Louis David and the Prix de Rome (diss., U. Reading, 1984) The Grand Prix de Rome: Paintings from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1797-1863 (exh. cat. by P. Grunchec, Washington, DC, N. Acad. Des.; Richmond, VA, Mus. F.A.; Indianapolis, IN, Mus. A.; and elsewhere; 1984-5)    2010-11-15 08:49:52 GMT 38 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/37-Norwich-School-of-Painters The Norwich School of PaintersThe Norwich School of Painters A group of landscape painters established in Norwich, East Anglia, during the early part of the 19th Century. The Norwich Society was founded at a meeting of the friends, pupils and patrons of John Crome, the landscape painter. Its purpose was 'An Enquiry into the Rise, Progress and present state of Painting, Architecture and Sculpture, with a view to point out the Best Methods of study to attain to Greater Perfection in these Arts.' This group was strong but diverse. It was described as a school only because its leaders, John Crome and John Sell Cotman, operated in Norwich as teachers and drawing masters. Neither their own work, nor that of their pupils, displays a common style, though the artists established close personal and family links. While they concentrated for long periods on Norfolk scenery and life, they also visited and painted Wales and the Lake District, the Netherlands and northern France. They formed strong connections with colleagues at a national level, exhibited and sometimes lived in London, and were often at the forefront of contemporary artistic theory and taste. Even when regionally based, they were never provincial in outlook. The Society held fortnightly meetings and discussions, and organized an Exhibition of 223 oil and watercolor paintings by 18 members in 1805. The show was a success, and the Exhibitions became an annual event, the first of their type outside London. John Crome was President of the Society, and in 1807, John Sell Cotman joined the group, and became Vice-President. The Norwich School was dominated by these two, and the members can to some extent be divided into those who followed Crome's realist manner, and those working in the more free style of Cotman, who was not above painting pictures of places he had not personally visited, working from other artists' sketches. The Norwich Society flourished through to the 1830s, when the Exhibitions faltered and ceased in 1833. They were revived in 1839, but never achieved the same success as previously. Crome had died in 1821, and Cotman died in 1842. Artists of the Norwich School continued working through to the 1880s. The subjects of the Norwich School painters were typically landscapes, coasts and marine scenes from around Norwich and Norfolk. Rustic scenes were also popular. Often they combined old-master style colors with a closely observed realist observation of nature. The colors of the Norwich School pictures as they appear today are often more reddish-brown than originally, as apparently various of their colors, notably the indigo blue, faded or became red over time.   Works by most of the Norwich School may be seen in the Norwich Castle Museum. Crome and Cotman were big names and their work is distributed more widely. Three examples of the work of James Stark are in the Lady Lever Gallery, as well as works by Cotman and Crome, including his important English woodland scene Marlingford Grove (c.1815). Artists of the Norwich School included: John Crome (1768-1821) John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) Henry Bright (1810-1873) Joseph Clover (1779-1853) Samuel David Colkett (1800-1863) John Joseph Cotman (1814-1878) Miles Edmund Cotman (1810-1858) John Berney Crome (1794-1842) William Henry Crome (1806-c.1858) Revd. E. T. Daniell (1804-1843) David Hodgson (1798-1864) Robert Ladbrooke (1770-1842) John Berney Ladbrooke (1803-1879) Thomas Lound (1802-1861) John Middleton (1827-1856) Henry Ninham (1754-1817) Alfred Priest (1810-1850) James Sillett (1764-1840) Alfred Stannard (1806-1889) Alfred George Stannard (1828-1885) Joseph Stannard (1797-1830) James Stark (1794-1859) John Thirtle (1777-1859) . 2010-11-15 08:49:32 GMT 37 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/36-MANNERISM MANNERISMMannerism [It. maniera]. Name given to the stylistic phase in the art of Europe between the High Renaissance and the Baroque, covering the period from c. 1510-20 to 1600. It is also sometimes referred to as late Renaissance, and the move away from High Renaissance classicism is already evident in the late works of Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, and in the art of Michelangelo from the middle of his creative career. Although 16th-century artists took the formal vocabulary of the High Renaissance as their point of departure, they used it in ways that were diametrically opposed to the harmonious ideal it originally served. There are thus good grounds for considering Mannerism as a valid and autonomous stylistic phase, a status first claimed for it by art historians of the early 20th century. The term is also applied to a style of painting and drawing practiced by artists working in Antwerp slightly earlier, from c. 1500 to c. 1530). 1. History of the term.2. Historical context.3. Formal language.4. Iconography and theory.5. Spread and development. 1. History of the term.The multitude of opposing tendencies in 16th-century art makes it difficult to categorize by a single term, a difficulty increased by the importance Mannerism placed on conflict and diversity. Giorgio Vasari first applied the word 'maniera' to the visual arts in 1550. He used the words 'maniera greca' to describe the Byzantine style of medieval artists, which yielded to the naturalism of the early Renaissance, and he wrote of the 'maniera' of Michelangelo, which deeply influenced later 16th-century art. This gave rise to the modern concept of Mannerism as a description for the style of the 16th century. Although in 18th- and 19th-century art theory Mannerism was regarded as marking a decline from the High Renaissance, in the early 20th century critics recognized its affinities with contemporary artistic movements, and Mannerist art was highly esteemed. At the same time its importance in leading to the Baroque was appreciated, as were those aspects that opposed the classical stability of the High Renaissance. 2. Historical context.Mannerist art can be understood only in the context of profound social, religious and scientific turmoil. The Reformation officially started when Martin Luther nailed up his theses in 1517; the Counter-Reformation opposition started from the time of the Council of Trent in 1545. The Protestant doctrine of justification by faith challenged fundamental Catholic dogmas, and the Church of Rome could no longer exert its spiritual authority effortlessly, even in areas where the Counter-Reformation prevailed. The Sack of Rome in 1527 was interpreted as a retribution for moral decline and the glorification of luxury and sensuality. North of the Alps the structure of society was destabilized by the Peasants' Wars of 1524-5 in Germany. The discovery of the New World in the late 15th century and the early 16th must have had an equally momentous impact on the Christian West's concept of itself. The Old World could no longer see itself as the center of the earth, but was revealed as a relatively small area within an immeasurable and largely still unexplored whole with incalculable potential. On top of this came Copernicus's recognition of the heliocentric planetary system (c. 1512). A completely new view of the world came into being. The varied forms of Mannerist art evolved against this background. The art of the 16th century as a whole reflects deep doubts over the classical principles, normative proportions and lucid space of the High Renaissance. Mannerism may be described as the most willful and perverse of stylistic periods. 3. Formal language.(i) Movement.(ii) Spiritual intensity.(iii) Space.(iv) The fusion of the arts.(v) Anti-classicism and subjective expression. Mannerism, §3: Formal language(i) Movement.For the first time in Western art the painting and sculpture of the 16th century made the optical suggestion of movement a central creative concern. In painting this mainly affected subjects that suggest the passage of time, such as the Assumption of the Virgin or scenes from the Life of Christ, such as the Deposition and the Entombment. Examples include the Lamentation by Pontormo (1525-8; Florence, S Felicità;), Tintoretto's Bacchus and Ariadne (c. 1575; Venice, Pal. Ducale) and, north of the Alps, Pieter Bruegel the elder's Parable of the Blind (1568; Naples, Capodimonte. In sculpture this interest in movement inspired the creation of single figures or groups of figures that can be viewed from all sides, rather than from a single point; just as the figure seems to be in perpetual movement, so the spectator is encouraged to keep moving around it. Giorgio Vasari coined the expression 'figura serpentinata' (serpentine line) to describe this concept. The style was developed by Benvenuto Cellini in his Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1545-54; Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi; see Cellini) and subsequently by Giambologna in such works as Mercury (1580; Florence, Bargello) and the Rape of a Sabine (1582; Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi). (ii) Spiritual intensity.Endeavours to depict the spiritual were equally characteristic of Mannerism, especially in the field of painting. Medieval artists set weightless figures against a space less gold ground to suggest the realm of the Divine; in the Renaissance an interest in naturalistic description and anatomy subordinated the depiction of the transcendental. In Renaissance art the 'miracle is a process like any other earthly event' (Frey). For example, in Raphael's Disputa the heavenly and earthly spheres are bound together by being represented with equal reality. Mannerism, however, developed new means of distinguishing between the earthly and the divine, and in Mannerist art 'the world beyond intrudes into the world below' (Frey). The High Renaissance had paved the way for this process: Raphael, for instance, suggested the miraculous in the Liberation of St Peter (1514; Rome, Vatican, Stanza di Eliodoro) through the representation of light. A new painterly concept was the necessary basis for representing the spiritual. In 15th-century painting line dominated over colour. Line fixes an object on a flat surface, making it appear tangible and real. Leonardo da Vinci countered this with a new emphasis on colour, as in the Virgin and Child with St Anne (c. 1515; Paris, Louvre). In his art line gave way to the subtle modulation of tone, and this concept deeply influenced 16th-century painting, especially in Venice and Emilia. Forms become less tangible and clearly defined, and while line primarily appeals to the intellect, colour speaks first and foremost to the emotions. Thus the conditions were set for the viewer to be overwhelmed by the miracle made visible in the picture. This new potential was most fully realized in pictures of apparitions and visions. Titian's Virgin and Child with SS Francis and Aloysius and the Donor Alvise Gozzi (1520; Ancona, Pin. Com.), in which the Virgin miraculously appears to saints and to the donor, Alvise Gozzi, was of fundamental importance to the development of this theme. Many of Parmigianino's paintings, such as the Vision of St Jerome (commissioned 1526; London, N.G.) and the Virgin and Child with SS Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist and the Prophet Zachariah (c. 1530; Florence, Uffizi), were influenced by this work by Titian. Even the events described in the New Testament as taking place in this world were transposed into the divine realm, as in Titian's late version of the Annunciation (before 1566; Venice, S Salvatore) and Tintoretto's Last Supper (1592-4; Venice, S Giorgio Maggiore). Both the interest in movement and the representation of saintly visions and ecstasies were features developed by Baroque artists. iii) Space.Closely linked with giving visible expression to the spiritual was the endeavor to represent the infinite. In both architecture and painting the Renaissance had created space that was clearly defined on all sides. The viewer was provided with a definite frame and a fixed viewpoint. In the 16th century this situation was reversed. This development took place in stages. Initially the construction of pictorial space began to dominate over the animation of the surface. Here again the roots of the change can be found in the High Renaissance. Raphael's School of Athens (completed 1512; Rome, Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura) and the Expulsion of Heliodorus (1512-14; Vatican, Stanza di Eliodoro), in compositions based on the same principles, demonstrate the development from the primacy of surface to the primacy of space. In the second stage the space represented in pictures is seemingly extended into infinity: as in Francesco Salviati's fresco Bathsheba Going to David (1552-4; Rome, Palazzo Sacchetti), Tintoretto's Rediscovery of the Body of St Mark (before 1566; Milan, Brera) or Giambologna's relief of the Rape of a Sabine (1582; Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi). In the final stage, the side boundaries, too, are made transparent or even removed, as for example in Tintoretto's painting of the Transportation of the Body of St Mark (1562; Venice, Accad.) or Parmigianino's Madonna of the Long Neck (1534-40; Florence, Uffizi). This last painting also epitomizes a further defiance of High Renaissance lucidity: the architectural features and figures are no longer rationally united. Data relating to proportion and perspective space are at variance with one another, as is also the case in Pontormo's earlier panels illustrating the Story of Joseph (1515-18; London, N.G.). North of the Alps the impression of infinite space was conveyed by means different from those used in Italian painting, as northern artists were less skilled in the refinements of mathematical perspective. The world landscape (Weltlandschaft), seen from a bird's-eye viewpoint, was created in such works as Albrecht Altdorfer's Battle of Alexander (1529; Munich, Alte Pin.) and Joachim Patinir's Charon Crossing the Styx (c. 1510-20; Madrid, Prado). Developments in architecture were closely bound up with those in painting. The ideal of the centralized plan was abandoned in favor of the elongated axis. The administrative building of the grand duchy of Tuscany, the Uffizi, started in 1560 and designed by Vasari, was laid out according to this principle. The concept of a long gallery building, which was to be a constant component of grand houses and castles until the 19th century, became a favorite element in secular architecture. For example, Rosso Fiorentino created the Galerie François I at Fontainebleau in 1533-40 (5 m wide and 58 m long). In the 1580s Duke Vespasiano Gonzaga had the Palazzo del Giardino built at his residence in Sabbioneta, probably to designs by Vincenzo Scamozzi, on a narrow, seemingly unending axis. The blurring of fixed side limits that can be observed in painting, however, also had parallels in architecture. Michelangelo in particular in his designs (1516) for the façade of S Lorenzo in Florence (not implemented), the New Sacristy (1519-33) at S Lorenzo and the vestibule of the Biblioteca Laurenziana (both from 1524) treated the wall in a way that defies the normative proportions and clarity of the High Renaissance. Not only is the wall more sculpturally modeled than ever before, but there is no clear surface to act as a point of reference for the projecting and receding architectural elements; where the wall and thus the spatial boundary lies is debatable. In addition, Michelangelo no longer made a precise distinction between the façade and the inner wall; in the vestibule of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and in the New Sacristy the observer is confronted with four inward-turning façades. Another characteristic of Mannerist art with regard to treatment of space is the lifting of boundaries-or blurring of them-in a variety of ways. This applies especially to the boundary between the artistic space (in the work of art) and the real space. A distinction can be made between the passive and active removal of this aesthetic boundary: when it is lifted passively the artistic space appears to be a continuation of the real space, while when it is lifted actively elements or figures from the artistic space appear to step out into real space. Important preliminary stages of this process are again discernible c. 1500 (e.g. the altar wall of the Strozzi Chapel painted by Filippino Lippi at S Maria Novella, Florence). In 1516-17 Baldassare Peruzzi painted the Sala delle Prospettive in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, in which a painted architectural colonnade opens out over a view of Rome. In the Sala dei Cento Giorni (1546; Rome, Pal. Cancelleria) Vasari successfully achieved a disorientating play with the spatial boundaries, while with the Sala dei Cavalli (1525-35; Mantua, Palazzo del Te) Giulio Romano blurred the division between artistic and real space, and between architecture, painting and sculpture. With the frescoes (1561-2) in the Villa Barbaro at Maser, Paolo Veronese went farthest along this path. An important example of these trends north of the Alps is the painting in 1578-80 of the Narrentreppe and the Wartstube at Burg Trausnitz, outside Landshut, by Alessandro Scalzi. (iv) The fusion of the arts.In all the examples given so far, it is clear that conditions specific to the individual art forms were removed. The possibility of replacing one art form with another-for example, sculpture and architecture with painting, or architecture with sculpture-is most powerfully rooted in the work of Michelangelo (the nude figures that appear to be painted sculptures in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, 1508-12). This trend developed fully in the next generation. When Correggio decorated the Camera de S Paolo at the monastery of S Paolo in Parma (c. 1519) not only did he make it impossible to see where the ceiling ended, but he also used painting to suggest the presence of sculpture and architectural elements. Veronese opened the boundaries between architecture, sculpture and painting farther than anyone else in his decorations at the Villa Barbaro at Maser. Boundaries were overstepped in other respects too-here verging on the bizarre: for example, when buildings were created in the form of figural sculptures (c. 1580) in the garden at the Villa Orsini in Bomarzo (sacro bosco), or when sculpture sprang directly out of nature, as in the allegorical figure of the Apennines by Giambologna in the park at Pratolino, above Florence. (v) Anti-classicism and subjective expression.16th-century art rejected the classical principles of the High Renaissance. However, this alone does not make it Mannerist, as this further requires, among others, a predilection for the depiction of the abnormal and an emphasis on the subjective. Indeed, since the reassessment of Mannerism at the beginning of the 20th century, these latter aspects of 16th-century art have been much over-emphasized. In this context, the distortion of the human figure, often with the object of making it more expressive (a trend that is therefore allied with Expressionism), is of primary importance. Thus Rosso Fiorentino had no doubt studied Michelangelo, but he gave to his heroic figures seemingly arbitrary proportions and forms, summarizing and generalizing detail, as in Moses Defending Jethro's Daughters (1523; Florence, Uffizi) and the Deposition (1521; Volterra, Pin. Com.). In Florentine painting in particular figures were often elongated, while the heads remained relatively small, as in Pontormo's portrait of Alessandro de' Medici (c. 1525; Lucca, Mus. & Pin.), his Visitation (c. 1530; Carmignano, S Michele) and his frescoes (1523-5) in the Certosa del Galluzzo, near Florence. In North and Central Italy the same phenomena occurred, as in Parmigianino's Madonna of the Long Neck or Tintoretto's Christ before Pilate (1566-7; Venice, Scu. Grande di S Rocco). The work of El Greco is especially influenced by this anti-classical approach to the figure. The Milanese painter Giuseppe Arcimboldi came close to the style of Surrealism when he assembled human heads exclusively from realistically reproduced plant details (e.g. Winter, 1563; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) or placed figures in dreamlike contexts. In general terms between 1400 and 1600 three stages of development in the representation of the human figure in art can be identified. In the early Renaissance the ideal was to show man as he appears naturally. There followed, in the High Renaissance, a desire to create ideally beautiful figures and to overcome the blemishes of nature. The ideal of Mannerism was to go beyond the natural reality and to distort figures in the interests of subjective expression. In architecture classical forms are used in a fanciful and complex way that defies the rules of Classical architecture. Typical examples of this are the Palazzo del Te in Mantua, built c. 1525-35 by Giulio Romano, the courtyard face of which is structured all'antica, but with the masonry irregularly divided and with every third triglyph on the frieze threatening to slip out of place; the courtyard façade of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, which adopts the Classical orders-Doric, Ionic and Corinthian-but where the actual load-bearing members, the columns, are given virtually no visual impact; or Palladio's Villa Rotonda (started in 1553), Vicenza, which externally embodies the idea of the centrally planned building to perfection, while the central space within is so poorly lit that the visitor has the impression of being drawn outwards by the horizontal shafts of light coming from the four entrances. Thus the centripetal principle of the centrally planned building is reversed into its centrifugal opposite. 4. Iconography and theory.Mannerism is also distinguished by its intellectually complex iconography. Agnolo Bronzino's painting of the Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (c. 1544-5; London, N.G.) is as typical in this respect as Benvenuto Cellini's salt cellar (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.; see Cellini, benvenuto, fig. 4) with its heavy burden of mythological references, both works made for Francis I. Cellini himself said that he was well aware that he did not approach his work like many ignorant artists who, although they could produce things that were quite pleasing, were incapable of imbuing them with any meaning. Pieter Bruegel the elder drew much of his iconography from proverbs and folklore, attaining a similar intellectual sophistication. The art theory of the Mannerist period was concerned with aesthetic problems rather than with the empirical problems of perspective, proportion and anatomy that had absorbed 15th-century writers. Venetian and Florentine theorists debated the primacy of color and disegno; Paragone, a debate over whether painting or sculpture was the superior art form, raged; and in the late 16th century the question of the relationship between the creative idea (the 'concetto') and the model in nature was discussed by such theorists as Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo. 5. Spread and development.In the 1520s Mannerism was established as a style in Rome by the late work of Raphael and that of his followers, Giulio Romano and Perino del Vaga, and in Florence by the work of Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino. After the Sack of Rome (1527), the style spread to other Italian centers (Giulio Romano worked in Mantua, Sanmicheli in Verona and Parmigianino in Parma) and Florentine art of the mid-16th century may be described as mature Mannerism, the principal exponents of which were Bronzino, Vasari, Salviati and Giambologna. The Fontainebleau school was influential in the spread of Mannerism throughout Europe. The Italians Rosso, Cellini and Primaticcio were associated with it, and Rosso and Primaticcio, in the Galerie François I (1533-40), created a rich and intricate decorative style. Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon developed the style and, in the reign of Henry II, by such French artists as Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau the elder, who were influenced by developments in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands many artists who had visited Italy, among them Frans Floris and Marten de Vos, created a Mannerist style, and pattern-books such as those of Cornelis Floris, combining the Italian grotesque with scrolling and strap work, had a decisive effect in the second half of the 16th century, especially on architectural decoration north of the Alps. A highly sophisticated Mannerism flourished at the Wittelsbach court of Albert V in Munich and the Habsburg court of Rudolf II in Prague. In northern European art Mannerism continued well into the 17th century, but in Italy the Baroque style was established by c. 1600. The Mannerist interests in movement and expression were more prophetic of future developments than the static images of the High Renaissance. In many ways early Baroque art united these elements with High Renaissance clarity and naturalism. BIBLIOGRAPHYEWA [with full bibliog. and list of sources] G. Vasari: Vite (1550, rev. 2/1568); ed. G. Milanesi (1878-85) G. P. Lomazzo: Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scultura e architettura (Milan, 1584) --: Idea del tempio della pittura (Milan, 1590) J. Van Schlosser: Die Kunstliteratur (Vienna, 1924) [contains most sources] H. Hofmann: Hochrenaissance, Manierismus, Frühbarock: Die Italienische Künst des 16. Jahrhunderts (Zurich and Leipzig, 1939) R. Zürcher: Stilprobleme der Italienische Baukunst des Cinquecento (Basle, 1948) De triomf van het Manierism (exh. cat. ed. M. van Luttervelt; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. 1955) W. Friedländer; Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting (New York, 1957) E. Battisti: Rinascimento e barocco (Turin, 1960) G. Briganti: La maniera italiana (Rome, 1961) F. Württenberger: Der Manierismus (Vienna, 1962) F. Baumgart: Renaissance und Künst des Manierismus (Cologne, 1963) J. Pope-Hennessy: Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, 3 vols (London, 1963) L. van Puyvelde: Die Welt von Bosch und Breughel: Flämische Malerei im 16. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1963) D. Frey: Manierismus als europäische Stilerscheinung: Studien zur Künst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1964) A. Hauser: Der Ursprung der modernen Künst und Literatur: Die Entwicklung des Manierismus seit der Krise der Renaissance (Munich, 1964); Eng. trans. as Mannerism, 2 vols. (London, 1965) J. Shearman: Mannerism (Harmondsworth, 1967) G. Kauffmann: Die Künst des 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1972) H. Kozakiewiczowie and S. Kozakiewiczowie: The Renaissance in Poland (Warsaw, 1976) M. Wundram: Renaissance und Manierismus (Stuttgart and Zurich, 1985) 2010-11-15 08:49:07 GMT 36 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/35-HIGH-RENAISSANCE HIGH RENAISSANCEAll the artistic trends of the 15th century culminated around 1500 in the short-lived High Renaissance, which Heinrich Wölfflin, in Klassische Künst (introduction, 1898), described as the Classic Art of the modern age. It is as hard to give precise time limits to the period, as it is to give a comprehensive definition of it. It is generally accepted that artists of the High Renaissance developed more monumental forms and created unified and harmonious compositions that reject the decorative details of 15th-century art. In terms of the geography of art, there were important shifts in the period from c. 1490 to c. 1510. Florence lost its cultural ascendancy owing to the fall of the Medici in 1494 and the subsequent influence of the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola. After Savonarola was executed in 1498, Florence alternately fell into the hands of rival forces before the Medici returned to power in 1512. Those two decades were the climax of the High Renaissance, but Florence lacked influential patrons. The papacy with its restored power, on the other hand, attracted leading artists to Rome. In 1506 Pope Julius II appointed Donato Bramante architect for the new St Peter's, in 1505 he commissioned Michelangelo to build his tomb, and in 1508 he appointed Raphael to provide paintings for his private rooms, the Stanze. Rome once again became the center of the Christian West. At the same time Venice-which retained a powerful and wealthy feudal aristocracy who became enthusiastic patrons of art, particularly of painting-developed as a second important center whose influence spread throughout 16th-century Europe. At the start of the 16th century an intense dialogue began between the art of the Italian Renaissance and that of northern Europe, which surpassed earlier isolated, albeit significant, exchanges, and with northern Europe now the main recipient. After c. 1500 most important German and Netherlandish painters spent some years as apprentices in Italy as part of their training, and a wider knowledge of Italian art was spread through woodcuts and engravings. (i) Architecture.(ii) Sculpture.(iii) Painting and graphic art.(iv) The move towards Mannerism. (i) Architecture.In architecture Rome acted as a catalyst, enabling architects to mature their talents through a study of Classical antiquity. The centrally planned building, contained within it and developed symmetrically round a center, was preferred. Donato Bramante's Tempietto in the courtyard of the monastery of S Pietro in Montorio, which is not only a pure centrally planned building but also a completely unified structure, is comparable to sculpture with perfectly harmonious proportions. The additive composition of earlier centrally planned buildings, such as Giuliano da Sangallo's Madonna delle Carceri in Prato, was here discarded in favor of a more unified structure. Bramante intended to enclose the building within a circular colonnade, which would have emphasized its centrality and related it to its surroundings. The new St Peter's was also laid out as a pure centrally planned building, possibly a symbolic reference to its position as the center of Christendom. In keeping with the size of the project, Bramante designed a richly organized structure, the many spatial compartments of which were brought together in the ground plan as a square. The extent to which the inspiration of antiquity was at work is indicated by Bramante's proud declaration that in his design for St Peter's he wanted to put the Pantheon on top of Constantine's basilica (the Lateran Basilica). Bramante's scheme, still at its initial stages on his death in 1514, was modified by his successors, who included Raphael, Baldassare Peruzzi and Antonio da Sangallo the younger, and transformed by Michelangelo from 1547 when the sculptor shifted it in a more sculptural direction and incorporated more detail. Only a few of the great architectural projects of the early 16th century were implemented. The extent to which variants on the idea of the centrally planned building occupied artists' imaginations can be recognized particularly from painted background buildings and design drawings, especially those of Leonardo da Vinci. Of the large church projects that were realized, S Maria della Consolazione in Todi, conceived under Bramante's influence, is the purest incarnation of the spirit of the High Renaissance: no longer is the building assembled from independent cubes, instead the central structure and the transepts blend into one another, with the half-cylinders and half-domes of the transepts serving as a preparation for the circular form and hemisphere of the dominant central dome. (ii) Sculpture.The complexity and detail of the work of the preceding generation gave way to a new, unified concept of the statue. There were of course preliminary stages, such as the Virgin Enthroned and St Sebastian by Benedetto da Maiano (both Florence, Misericordia, left unfinished on the sculptor's death in 1497). They form part of the foundations of the work of Michelangelo, the most important sculptor of the High Renaissance, who also contributed decisively towards bringing this brief stylistic period to an end. A series of monumental commissions given to Michelangelo, which included Julius II's tomb (a commission awarded in 1505, then constantly reduced in scale), the cycle of 12 larger-than-life-size statues for the choir of Florence Cathedral, started in 1506 (only St Matthew was executed; Florence, Accad.), the sculptural program for the façade of S Lorenzo in Florence, which never got beyond the design stage (1516), and the enrichment (from 1524) of the New Sacristy in S Lorenzo, Florence, were on an unprecedented scale and made new demands. Antiquity now played a crucial role as a source of inspiration. The importance of Roman ruins to architecture was paralleled in sculpture by the many antique works that were being excavated in Rome and that came to form the foundations of the Vatican collections. In 1506 the Laokoon (Rome, Vatican, Mus. Pio-Clementino) was found, supposedly in the presence of Michelangelo. In 1515 Pope Leo X appointed Raphael overseer of the antique buildings of Rome. (iii) Painting and graphic art.(a) Italy.Around 1500 Italian painting is notable for its wide range of varied possibilities, some contradictory and some complementing one another. Lively lines could be used as a means of heightening expression, as in the art of Botticelli, but the line could also be exaggerated to virtuosic brilliance, with no inhibitions about effect, as by Filippino Lippi. At the same time the Umbrian school (led by Pietro Perugino) and Venetian painters (particularly Giovanni Bellini) cultivated the modeling of figures and objects by means of light and colour. Alongside the ability of Mantegna and Melozzo da Forlì to achieve powerful illusionistic effects was Piero della Francesca's doctrine of the constitutive importance of the surface. Artists such as Luca Signorelli developed a detailed realism, barely imaginable in the early 15th century, and associated with mastery in conveying the human body in extremes of movement. There are also examples of large-scale and imposing, multi-figured compositions, such as Domenico Ghirlandaio's frescoes of the Life of the Virgin and Life of St John the Baptist (1486-90) in the choir of S Maria Novella, Florence. A wide range of mythological, secular themes 15th century had expanded the subject matter of the early. Against all probability and expectation, elements that had to some extent appeared irreconcilable came together in a synthesis c. 1500, beginning with Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper for the refectory of S Maria delle Grazie in Milan in 1496-7. The viewer is initially overwhelmed by apparently being able to identify with the painted figures but is in fact held at a distance by the various perspective systems governing real and artistic space, the ideal nature of the composition, which has been thought through to the last detail, and the monumental scale of the figures. In Leonardo's panel paintings his compositional skill is combined with a revolutionary approach to painterly qualities. Increasingly line was replaced by the modulation of colour, and the transitions between figures and landscapes became fluid. Space came to be conveyed not primarily by the use of mathematical perspective, but by lightening the colour and gradually softening the outlines. Leonardo, the perfect embodiment of the ideal of an artist able to work in every artistic sphere and at the same time possessing universal knowledge, did not receive the recognition and understanding that were his due in either Florence or Rome. His move to North Italy, justified in worldly terms by a large number of prestigious commissions from Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, was ultimately sanctioned by an internal logic: close to Venice, he was able both to develop and to spread his influence. The Venetian approach to colour, created by Giorgione and the young Titian, and is inconceivable without knowledge of Leonardo. Next to Leonardo, Raphael most perfectly represents the ideals of the High Renaissance. Born in Urbino, he was exposed to the works and theories of Leon Battista Alberti and Piero della Francesca while still very young. His feeling for the painterly treatment of contours and his gift for depicting landscape were developed in Umbria in Perugino's studio. During the years he spent in Florence his drawing became more precise, he acquired an understanding of how to convey the human body in movement, and at the same time the works of Fra Bartolomeo provided him with a model for the large-scale organization of monumental compositions, which he then perfected on Roman soil in his own frescoes under the influence of antique monuments. As with Leonardo's Last Supper, the Disputà and the School of Athens, both in the Stanze at the Vatican, do not at first sight reveal the artistic intelligence with which the tension between the painted space and the flat surface is resolved, or how the unpromising, badly lit wall surfaces, asymmetrically interrupted by doors, are seemingly transformed into virtually 'ideal' formats; or how the unforced and apparently casual figure groupings are in fact thought out down to the smallest detail and are extensively prepared in a long series of studies; or, finally, how the complicated iconographical program are made readily comprehensible. (b) Germany.The High Renaissance is essentially a phenomenon of Italian art. North of the Alps the antique tradition, the inspiration of all 'classical art', was absent. The great exception is the work of Albrecht Dürer. In northern Europe an interest in the ideals of Italian art, at present inexplicable in terms of the history of either art or civilization, culminated in the work of Dürer. In the 15th century the greatest northern achievements had taken place in the Netherlands, but in the 16th century Germany became the dominant artistic center. Initially Dürer used line as his prime means of expression, and accordingly in his early work woodcut and engraving are at the center of his creative output. His decisive encounter with Italian art took place in the course of his two journeys to Italy in 1494-5 and 1505-7. From the Venetians, above all Giovanni Bellini, he learnt to use colour to soften outlines and recognized the need for a theory of art going beyond the purely intuitive description of objects. Presumably he also went to Rome during his second stay in Italy and was able to see the monuments of antiquity for himself. The Virgin of the Rose Garlands (1506; Prague, N.G.) painted in Venice for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the Landauer Altarpiece (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.)-A counterpart to Raphael's Disputà-and the Four Apostles (1526; Munich, Alte Pin. see fig. 5) superbly demonstrate a blending of the German and Italian feeling for form. Dürer's great German contemporaries cannot be categorized as High Renaissance artists. Matthias Grünewald has even been described as the 'master of anti-classical painting' (A. M. Vogt). He emphasized the expressive power of colour. His Isenheim Altar (begun c. 1512; Colmar, Mus. Unterlinden) is the most important contribution to the history of colour ever made throughout the course of German art. Further research is still needed to establish the extent of any connection between it and Leonardo's new colour theories and the work of Giorgione. The painters of the Danube school, especially Lucas Cranach the elder as a young man, Albrecht Altdorfer and Wolfgang Huber, also took colour as their starting point. (iv) The move towards Mannerism.The High Renaissance period could only last a short time. The integration of the real into the ideal, of the utmost fullness of life into something strictly composed, of the spontaneous into the intellectual, of the extremely individualistic into the typical, of the perfect, illusionistic representation of space into a flat surface and of the secular into the sacred could not be surpassed. It was in fact the very people who had participated in the High Renaissance who introduced new developments: Michelangelo when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in the Vatican (1508-12) by the passionate sweep of movement in his figures and the blurring of the boundaries between painting and sculpture; Raphael in the later Stanze in the Vatican and his final panel paintings (e.g. Transfiguration, 1517-19; Rome, Pin. Vaticana) by his emphasis on spatial depth at the expense of surface, on colour at the expense of line, on the contrasts of light and shade at the expense of an even spread of light, and on the free equilibrium of forces at the expense of a balance achieved by near symmetry; and finally Leonardo by the sfumato of his late works causing figures and objects to retreat as it were behind a veil. They opened the way to the late Renaissance phase now generally referred to as Mannerism. BIBLIOGRAPHYearly sourcesL. B. Alberti: Della pittura (Florence, 1435); ed. L. Mallé (Florence, 1950) P. della Francesca: De prospectiva pingendi (MS.; before 1482); ed. G. Nicco Fasola, 2 vols. (Florence, 1942/R 1984) L. B. Alberti: De re aedificatoria libri X (Florence, 1485); ed. G. Orlandi (Milan, 1966) G. Vasari: Vite (1550; rev. 2/1568); ed. G. Milanesi (1878-85) cultural historyJ. Burckhardt: Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (Basle, 1860) J. Huizinga: Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen: … (Haarlem, 1919); Eng. trans. as The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the 14th and 15th Centuries (London, 1924/R 1980) D. Frey: Gotik und Renaissance als Grundlagen der modernen Weltanschauung (Augsburg, 1929) A. Warburg: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. G. Bing, 2 vols. (Leipzig and Berlin, 1932/R Nedeln, 1969) M. Wackernagel: Der Lebensraum des Künstlers in der florentinischen Renaissance: Aufgaben und Auftraggeber, Werkstatt und Kunstmarkt (Leipzig, 1938; Eng. trans., Princeton, 1981) E. Panofsky: Studies in Iconology: Humanist Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York, 1939/R 1962) F. Antal: Florentine Painting and its Social Background (London, 1943) A. Chastel and R. Klein: L'Age de l'humanisme (Paris, 1963) H. Bauer: Künst und Utopie: Studien über das Künst- und Staatsdenken in der Renaissance (Berlin, 1965) general surveysJ. Burckhardt: Der Cicerone: Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens (Basle, 1855) H. Wölfflin: Renaissance und Barock (Munich, 1888; Eng. trans., London, 1964) --: Die Klassische Künst: Eine Einführung in die Italienische Renaissance (Munich, 1899; Eng. trans., Oxford, 1953) M. Dvorák: Geschichte der Italienische Künst im Zeitalter der Renaissance, 2 vols (Munich, 1927-9) H. Wölfflin: Italien und das deutsche Formgefühl (Munich, 1931) W. Pinder: Die deutsche Künst der Dürer-Zeit (Leipzig, 1940) E. Panofsky: Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, 2 vols (Stockholm, 1960) The Renaissance and Mannerism: Studies in Western Art. Acts of the 20th International Congress of the History of Art: Princeton, 1963 A. Chastel: Italienische Renaissance: Die grossen Kunstzentren (Munich, 1965) --: Italienische Renaissance: Die Ausdrucksformen der Künste (Munich, 1966) E. H. Gombrich: Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (London, 1966) A. Chastel: Der Mythos der Renaissance, 1420-1520 (Geneva, 1969) M. Wundram: Frührenaissance (Baden-Baden, 1970) F. W. Fischer and J. J. Timmers: Spätgotik: Zwischen Mystik und Reformation (Baden-Baden, 1971) J. Bialostocki: Spätmittelalter und Beginn der Neuzeit (Berlin, 1972) P. Burke: Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Italy (London, 1972) F. Seibt, ed.: Renaissance in Böhmen (Munich, 1985) architectureJ. Burckhardt and W. Lübke: Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien (Stuttgart, 1878, 3/1891) C. von Stegmann and H. von Geymüller: Die Architektur der Renaissance in Toscana, 11 vols (Munich, 1885-1909) H. Willich and P. Zucker: Die Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien, 2 vols (Potsdam, 1914-29) A. Haupt: Baukunst der Renaissance in Frankreich und Deutschland (Berlin and Neubabelsberg, 1923) R. Wittkower: Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (London, 1952) P. Murray: The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1969/R 1981) H. A. Milton and V. M. Lampugnani, eds: The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: The Representation of Architecture (London, 1994) sculptureW. Pinder: Die deutsche Plastik vom Mittelalter bis zum Ende der Renaissance, 2 vols (Potsdam, 1914-29) J. Pope-Hennessy: Italian Renaissance Sculpture (London, 1958) T. Müller: Sculpture in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain, Pelican Hist. A. (Harmondsworth, 1966) C. Seymour jr: Sculpture in Italy, 1400-1500, Pelican Hist. A. (Harmondsworth, 1966) paintingK. Escher: Die Malerei des 14.-16. Jahrhunderts in Mittel- und Unteritalien (Potsdam, 1922) R. van Marle: Italian Schools (1923-38) M. Friedländer: Die altniederländische Malerei (The Hague, 1924) E. van der Bercken: Malerei der Früh- und Hochrenaissance in Oberitalien (Potsdam, 1927) A. Stange: Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, 11 vols (Munich, 1934-61) G. Ring: A Century of French Painting, 1400 to 1500 (London, 1949) L. Venturi: La Peinture italienne, 3 vols (Geneva, 1950-) E. Panofsky: Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1953) J. White: Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space (London, 1957, rev. 1975) S. Freedberg: Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1961) R. Salvini: Pittura italiana II: Quattrocento (Munich, 1962) 2010-11-15 08:48:47 GMT 35 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/34-GILT-BRONZE-:-1600-1800 GILT BRONZE : 1600-1800Introduction.Baroque and Rococo.Neo-classicism. Introduction. The use of gilt-bronze in furnishings during the 17th and 18th centuries was one expression of the resurgence of a more refined lifestyle that developed during the 17th century. Its use became widespread during the reign of Louis XIV and contributed to the sumptuous and luxurious décor in grand interiors of the time. The essential quality that made bronze so attractive as a medium was that it formed a perfect base for gilding or, more rarely, silvering. Gilt-bronze was used in every aspect of interior furnishings and replaced ironwork. Bronzes d'ameublement comprised clocks, mirrors, fire-dogs, wall-lights, candelabra and chandeliers; ormolu mounts were applied to furniture, porcelain and hardstones. Gilt-bronze was also used for door furniture, to ornament chimney-pieces, staircases, boiseries and marble and was even used to adorn watches. One motive behind this increased use of gilt-bronze can be found in the many sumptuary edicts issued by Louis XIV, in which he forbade the use of precious metals in furnishings. These measures had a serious, though temporary, effect on the type of work carried out in precious metals, but the edicts did not prevent makers from resorting to gilding or silvering in order to create objects considered indispensable not only for the pomp, glory and majesty of the Crown itself but also for the luxurious surroundings demanded by the French nobility. Items that had previously been executed in silver and silver gilt were now re-created in gilt-bronze, for example the surtout de table (Toledo, OH, Mus. A.) made for Louis de Bourbon, the Grand Dauphin, by Nicolas de Launay (1647-1727).During the reign of Louis XIV a precise distinction was drawn between the two trades of the fondeurs-fondants (metal-casters and founders) and the fondeurs-ciseleurs (metal-casters and chasers or engravers), both of which belonged to the same guild. Gilding and silvering were the exclusive domain of a separate guild, that of the doreurs-ciseleurs (gilders and chasers or engravers); it was not until 1776 that these two guilds merged. The fondeurs-fondants confined themselves to the single activity of casting, while the job of designing and creating models for bronze work was the responsibility of the fondeurs-ciseleurs. Most of the latter group were also sculptors, for example André-Charles Boulle, Domenico Cucci, Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain and Pierre-Philippe Thomire, and such members of the Académie Royale de Sculpture et de Peinture or the Académie de Saint-Luc as Sébastien Slodtz and his sons, François-Antoine Vassé, Jacques Caffiéri, Philippe Caffiéri, Etienne Martincourt (?1735-after 1791) and Jean-Louis Prieur. All were experts in chasing and engraving, the skill that gave bronze its value prior to gilding. Towards the end of the 18th century such gilders as Pierre Gouthière and François Rémond were celebrated for the techniques of matt and burnished gilding. Gilders, for example Louis-François Gobert (d 1772), often used their own models, which would have first been cast in bronze by the fondeurs-fondants, later chased or engraved and gilt. Sculptors, furniture-makers and watchmakers also had their own models, to which they had exclusive rights as long as the casting and gilding was carried out by qualified master craftsmen. Baroque and Rococo. In the early 17th century gilt-bronze was not used for furnishings to any great degree except in the case of ornament in church choirs, for example chandeliers and lecterns. It then began to make an appearance in domestic interiors, as in the pedestals (1641) for the Palais du Louvre, Paris, and the capitals and bases (1653-5) of the columns of the baths in Anne of Austria's winter apartments, also in the Louvre. Although Cucci and Boulle both bore the title of Ebéniste et Ciseleur du Roi, the use of gilt-bronze in furniture was generally confined to the edges of table-tops, the capitals of columns and the ferrules placed around the posts or uprights. Cucci delivered candelabra (Paris, Mus. A. Déc.) to the Marquise de Seignelay in 1693, and Boulle also executed candelabra in 1699 for the private apartments of the Grand Dauphin at Versailles. Stylistically, however, this range of objects was no different from the identical models executed in gold or silver.The use of gilt-bronze came into its own at the end of the 17th century. A move away from the Baroque can be seen in two of Boulle's chandeliers, the chandelier with the figure of Renown (Paris, Louvre) and the Dolphin Chandelier (Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.), and in the Four Hours of the Day Clock by Jean Berain I, Pierre Le Nègre ( fl 1680-1711) and Sébastien Slodtz, of which only the design is extant (Stockholm, Nmus.). This development was more strongly marked in such other works by Boulle as the commode for the King's Chamber in the Trianon (1708; Versailles, Château) and his Venus Marine Clock (London, Wallace), in which the wood is effectively a secondary material. Other examples that point towards a fundamental change in the use of materials include the terminal busts of Zephyrus and Flora (1713) that Vassé attached to the mantel of a chimney-piece intended for the Duchesse de Berry at Versailles.Gilt-bronze lent itself admirably well to the expression of the Rococo style. Boulle introduced Rococo elements into a number of his works, for example some wall-lights with dragons (Paris, Mme Grog-Carven priv. col.), which matched the similarly inspired wall-lights designed by Jean Berain II (1674-1726) and Sébastien Slodtz in 1720 for Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria (Munich, Schloss Nymphenburg, destr.). Vassé in turn modelled a dragon in triumphant pose holding candle-nozzles in its jaw and on its wings (Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian). The major casters and founders working in gilt-bronze in the Rococo style included Jean Le Blanc ( fl c. 1730-60), the brothers Jean-Baptiste and Nicolas Barthélemy Fuzellier ( fl c. 1710-50), Nicolas Vassoult ( fl c. 1710-65), Thomas Germain, Jacques Confesseur (c. 1690-1759) and Charles Cressent. Others whose work was especially fashionable were Jacques Caffiéri, Saint-Germain and Jean-Claude Duplessis, who made an astonishing brazier (Istanbul, Topkapi Pal. Mus.) in 1742 on the orders of Louis XV as a gift for Mahmud I, Sultan of Turkey. Asymmetrical Rococo was to reach its apogee in the pieces executed in the 1750s by François-Thomas Germain, for example the wall-lights for the Palais-Royal, Paris (Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.), and the mantelpiece in the Bernsdorf Palace, Copenhagen.The gilt-bronze mounts used in furniture were on occasion so overwhelming that many pieces appeared to be no more than a mere support for the extravagance of the mounts. This can be seen in the medal-cabinet (Versailles, Château) executed for Louis XV by Antoine-Robert Gaudreaus and the Slodtz brothers, in the series of commodes decorated with hunting scenes (Dresden, Schloss Pillnitz; Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.) executed by Bernard van Risamburgh II for Frederick-Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, and in the regulator clocks (Dresden, Altes Schloss, possibly destr.) in the form of life-size palm-trees, decorated with girandoles, which were executed by Jean-Pierre Latz and intended for the same sovereign.Another new use for gilt-bronze was that of creating mounts for hardstones, marble or porcelain. The practice spread on an unparalleled scale owing to the impetus given by marchands-merciers and collectors. Porcelain vessels were transformed into potpourris, ewers, fountains, clocks or perfume burners. Two greyhounds were modelled keeping watch at the foot of a celadon water-basin with reservoir and tap (Versailles, Château), delivered to Louis XV in 1742, for example, and a terrace complete with balustrade, staircase and gilt-bronze trophy served as a plinth for a massive Sèvres flower vase (Dresden, Zwinger). The most prominent artists specializing in this technique included Louis Paffe ( fl 1733-70), Duplessis, Saint-Germain, Vassoult and Edme-Jean Gallien (1720-after 1781), although no work by them is signed. From 1745 onwards the Rococo style went through a more sober phase, an example of which is the well-known astronomical clock (Versailles, Château) made by Passement and the Caffiéris. Neo-classicism. Jean-Jacques Caffiéri was foremost among those working in le goût grec and was renowned after 1757 for the bronzes he executed to adorn Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully's furniture (Chantilly, Château), as was Edme Roy ( fl 1745-80), who made the famous clock with a figure of Study for Mme Geoffrin; the figure on the clock was modelled by Laurent Guiard (1723-88). Robert Osmond (1713-89) designed a clock adorned with a vase and lions' heads (Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.), and Saint-Germain created not only the Spirit of Denmark Clock (Copenhagen, Amalienborg) but also a number of astonishing candelabra with tripod bases terminating in lions' paws. Etienne Martincourt designed the Astronomy and Geography Clock (Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.). Prieur sent his candelabra with eagles to Warsaw (now in Detroit, MI, Inst. A.), while Claude-Quentin Pitoin delivered numerous wall-lights and lamps to the Garde Meuble de la Couronne. Rather than being particularly original, however, these works presented a rigid interpretation of Neo-classicism.The Etruscan style can be seen in the wall-lights executed by Prieur for the palace ballroom in Warsaw (now in Paris, Mus. Nissim de Camondo), in those made for the high altar in Embrun Cathedral by Jean-Baptiste Allnet ( fl 1766-86) and in the clock (St Petersburg, Hermitage) with allegorical figures that Prieur made for the marriage of Louis XVI after a design by François Boucher. This style was fully developed in the Four Seasons Candelabra (London, Buckingham Pal., Royal Col.) executed by Philippe Caffiéri (ii), in the Three Graces Clock (Toronto, Royal Ont. Mus.) by François Vion (1737-after 1790), in the Ship Clock (ex-Roberto Polo priv. col., New York) by Nicolas Bonnet (1740-after 1790) and in the Avignon Clock (London, Wallace); by Gouthière and Louis-Simon Boizot. The artists, designers and craftsmen who were responsible for developing this vision of the 'grand style' included Boizot, François-Joseph Belanger, Gilles-Paul Cauvet, Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Nicolas Ledoux, Jean-Démosthène Dugourc and Jean-François Forty ( fl c. 1760-90). Such talented sculptors as Jean-François Houdon and Augustin Pajou also contributed, as did Prieur, Martincourt, Louis-Gabriel Feloix (1730-after 1790), Jean-Claude-Thomas Duplessis the younger, Gouthière, Rémond and Thomire.Imaginary and exotic animals, for example the kneeling camels that appear on Gouthière's lamps (Paris, Louvre), were often used to form a support for monumental compositions, as seen in the candelabra with ostriches (Versailles, Château) by Rémond and the clocks with Vestal virgins carrying the sacred fire (Minneapolis, MN, Inst. A.) by Thomire, where rams' heads were used as handles for the vases and eagles' heads were used to support the candle-nozzles. Duplessis and Thomire, who succeeded one another as modellers and designers at the Sèvres factory, were renowned for the quality of their mounts for porcelain and hardstones. Such mounts can also be seen in works by Gouthière (e.g. in Paris, Louvre), Rémond and Antoine-Louis Pajot (c. 1730-81), where the refinement of these artists' imaginations vied with the equally remarkable perfection of their chasing. After c. 1780 gilt-bronzes incorporated into furnishings began to display exaggeration, as in some work by Jean-Henri Riesener, Martin Carlin, Adam Weisweiller and Guillaume Beneman. A typical example of this development can be found in the gilt-bronze mounts on the jewel-cabinet made for Marie-Antoinette by Jean-Ferdinand-Joseph Schwerdfeger (Versailles, Château), which were executed by Boizot, Martincourt and Thomire.The French Revolution offered new subject-matter for bronzeworkers, although such symbols as the lictors' fasces were already part of the visual vocabulary prior to 1789, as in the commode from Louis XVI's apartments at Saint-Cloud (Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.). The success of the novel Paul et Virginie (Paris, 1787) by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre influenced works, including clocks and candelabra, executed au nègre. A considerable number of subjects remained fashionable, such as the nymph Erigone and the numerous variations executed on the theme of love, as seen in such sculptures by Philippe-Laurent Roland (1746-1816) as the Chariot of the Seasons (Madrid, Pal. Real) and the Pledge of Love (St Petersburg, Hermitage), which were cast by Thomire, and in such work by François-Nicolas Delaistre (1746-1823) as Friendship Led by Love and Crowned by Hymen (New York, Mr and Mrs Frank Richardson III priv. col.). By the end of the 18th century, the most brilliant period in the execution of works in gilt-bronze in France drew to a close. BIBLIOGRAPHYD. F. Lunsingh-Scheurleer: Chinesisches und japanisches Porzellan in europaïschen Fassungen (Brunswick, 1980) H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel: Vergoldete Bronzen: Die Bronzearbeiten des Spätbarock und Klassizismus, 2 vols (Munich, 1986) P. Verlet: Les Bronzes dorés français du XVIIIème siècle (Paris, 1987) G. Bresc-Bautier: 'Problèmes du bronze français: Fondeurs et sculpteurs à Paris, 1600-1660', Archvs A. Fr., n. s., xxx (1989), pp. 11-50   During this period wrought-iron was relegated to the ranks of mere ironmongery inside furniture. Locks (e.g. in Rouen, Mus. Le Secq des Tournelles), the mechanisms of which grew increasingly complicated, were sometimes very finely engraved, while keys were always very ornate, chased and engraved. Caskets made of polished iron were often engraved with simple foliage and were made for keeping important papers and jewellery. Kitchen and household implements and andirons, which were produced in great numbers, remained simple in design, with their shafts turned to form balusters, sometimes embellished with volutes or more rarely with bronze or brass motifs. Pewter, hardy and inexpensive, was the only material capable of meeting the enormous domestic, commercial, religious and medical demands. On the whole, pewter objects of this period are simple, without decoration (they were for daily use and needed to be easy to clean). The most representative examples were the candlestick à la financière (Paris, Mus. A. Déc.), the shaft of which represents a bundle of small, interconnected candles, and the broad-rimmed charger à la cardinal (Paris, Mus. A. Déc.), so called because it was introduced into France by Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Decoration in relief was abandoned, with only a few plates engraved with designs and even then it was often a simple coat of arms. Bronze, brass and copper continued to be used for the manufacture of kitchen and household implements, and for candleware, where models with shafts turned to form balusters and triangular bases predominated.   2010-11-15 08:48:27 GMT 34 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/33-GILDING-AFTER-1800 GILDING AFTER 1800In the 19th century wrought-iron was primarily utilized for the production of domestic objects, particularly those for heating and cooking, and thus its use declined with the progressive rejection of open-hearth fires. At the beginning of the 20th century Héctor Guimard designed architectural ironwork in the Art Nouveau style (e.g. panel for a balcony, c. 1900; London, V&A), and several French glassmakers and potters used wrought-iron frames for goblets, lamps and chandeliers (examples in Paris, Mus. d'Orsay; Paris, Mus. A. Déc.). It was not until the 1930s, however, that there was a major revival of wrought-iron in decorative art, in the form of railings, staircases, tables, frames and lights. Edgar Brandt (1880-1960), who worked in Paris, designed a series of wrought-iron and tin-plate panels (c. 1922-8; London, V&A; Mus. London) in the Art Deco style for the lifts of Selfridges department store, London. Other notable ironworkers during the early to mid-20th century included Raymond Subes (1893-1970) and Gilbert Poillerat (1902-88).The use of copper was restricted to kitchen utensils until the 1930s, when a number of French artists and designers, including JEAN DUNAND and Claudius Linossier (1893-1953), revived the traditional techniques of hammering and repoussé. They produced goblets, vases and dishes that often incorporate brass or silver inlay patterns in the Art Deco style (e.g. of 1925; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.; see fig. 84) and are sometimes patinated or lacquered. In the late 20th century such craftsmen as Maurice Perrier (b 1925) and Guy Lommé (b 1947) produced both traditional patinated vessels and anthropomorphic forms in copper.The use of pewter, which had been superseded by that of ceramics in the 18th century, was revived from the beginning of the 19th century. The simple techniques and relatively low cost of manufacturing pewter enabled the production, mainly in Paris, of series of inexpensive sculptures and decorative objects (e.g. Paris, Mus. A. Déc.). The most notable craftsmen working in pewter in the late 19th century included Jules Brateau (1844-1923), Jules Desbois, Jean Baffier (1851-1921) and Raoul Larche. In the 1930s another traditional technique, pewter dinanderie, was used for numerous objects in the Art Deco style. Repoussé and hammering enabled the production of bold, unadorned forms. Apart from Dunand, other craftsmen using this technique included Maurice Daurat (1880-1960) and Jean Desprès (1889-1980).In the Empire and Restoration periods there was a proliferation of decorative bronzework, often gilt, particularly for furniture. Among the most important works are those of PIERRE-PHILIPPE THOMIRE and Martin-Guillaume Biennais. Small bronze pieces in the form of animals became popular before the mid-19th century; towards the end of the century these were produced by such sculptors as Antoine-Louis Barye and Pierre-Jules Mène. Around 1900 the firms of Barbedienne, Susse Frères, Rudier and Siot-Decauville manufactured small, decorative bronze as well as pewter pieces after designs by Jean Baffier, Raoul Larche and many others. In the same period Guimard designed furniture fittings, such as handles, knobs and bell-buttons. Small bronze objects and decorative items continued to be produced during the Art Deco period by such craftsmen as Demeter Chiparus (1888-1950), known for his sculptures (Paris, Mus. d'Orsay; Paris, Mus. A. Déc.) that combine metals with ivory, and Armand-Albert Rateau (1882-1938), who is also justly famous for his original furniture creations in bronze (e.g. Paris, Mus. A. Déc.).   2010-11-15 08:48:07 GMT 33 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/32-ART-LIFE-IN-FRANCE-:-1870-1914 ART LIFE IN FRANCE : 1870-1914Under the Third Republic, Paris continued to prosper as a center of artistic production, through both private and public enterprise. Throughout this period the artistic population grew, fed by the provinces and foreign immigration. Paris offered artists better support, more opportunities and greater freedom than any other European city: it remained, consequently, an unrivalled creative center both in terms of quantity and quality and as the principal home of international 'modernist' art. Artists congregated in several districts of the city, mainly those close either to the commercial districts around the Bourse or to the art institutions of the arrondissement-the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Musée du Luxembourg. The grandest artists' residences were found near the Parc Monceau in the northwest, but several successful figures, including Auguste Rodin and William Bouguereau, chose to live on the Left Bank. The Impressionists' generation favored the districts between the Gare St Lazare and the Place de Clichy: by the end of the century many artists had migrated even further north in search of cheap rents, into Montmartre. A similar development occurred in Montparnasse, the southern areas of which became a well-known center for poor foreign artists in the years before World War I. Most young French artists continued to aspire to success through training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, although the pressure of numbers continually made this more difficult to achieve. The basis of progress within the Ecole remained the competitions ultimately leading to the Prix de Rome. Many students could spend several years working either in a studio attached to the school-for example that of Gustave Moreau, which Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault attended in the 1890s-or in a private establishment such as the Académie Julian, undertaking competition projects but without proceeding to this ultimate academic test. Private schools also catered for the large numbers of foreign students and for those who sought a less traditional art education. Many such students were women, who were denied access to the Ecole until 1897: the rising number of female artists seeking to become professional artists was one of the features of the period. From the late 1870s, as a result of the Republicans' wish to distinguish their regime from its authoritarian predecessors, liberal principles were applied to artistic organizations, while state power was used to foster a republican ideology, through education and patronage. The Expositions Universelles offered the grandest opportunities to do this: in 1878 stress was laid on the resurgence of France after the crisis of 1870-71; in 1889 the Republic was celebrated as a motor for progress; and in 1900 design was used to promote an 'organic' concept of society in keeping with current trends in political thinking. In each case the fine arts were used to add prestige to the event and assert France's unique contribution to Western civilization. Major public commissions included murals in the Panthéon (1874-8; 1893-8), the Hôtel de Ville (1887-92) and the Petit Palais (1898-1900). The Panthéon decorations included a frieze of saints by the highly influential Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. The State also continued to purchase work at the Salons for display in provincial museums and at the Musée du Luxembourg. In the art world, official acquisition policy was a matter of controversy, since it inevitably became involved in disputes over the status of different currents in modern art. In 1913 the Musée du Luxembourg owned five works by Albert Besnard, a well-known portrait painter and leading member of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, as against two by Paul Cézanne. These, together with almost all the other Impressionist works in the collection, formed part of the Caillebotte bequest of 1895. The hesitation shown by the acquisitions committee in accepting all the works in this collection has often been cited as evidence of the 'retarded' taste of officialdom at this time, although the level of resistance put up to the bequest has sometimes been exaggerated. It is true, however, that the main representation of the modern school in state collections was due to gift rather than purchase. Claude Monet had been instrumental in 1890 in obliging the State to accept the gift of Edouard Manet's Olympia (1863; now Paris, Mus. d'Orsay) for the Musée du Luxembourg. In 1907, again through pressure from Monet and his contacts, the painting was transferred to the Louvre. Under the Third Republic, the quasi-monopoly of exhibition held by the Salon was finally broken. The republicans decided that market forces should regulate this aspect of artistic life: in 1881 the State relinquished its tutelary role and placed responsibility for the Salon entirely in the hands of the Société des Artistes Français. Within 25 years the pattern of Salon exhibition had changed dramatically, in response to pressure from artists both in terms of numbers and diverging artistic trends. In 1884 a group including Paul Signac and Georges Seurat founded the Salon des Indépendants, based on the principle of jury-free exhibition. This made for a very mixed-and large-exhibition, in which the self-consciously avant-garde was shown next to the work of amateur painters and weak exponents of orthodox styles. One of its most regular exhibitors was Henri Rousseau, who celebrated it in Liberty Inviting Artists to Participate in the 22nd Exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. The Société des Artistes Français split into two rival associations in 1890, more as a result of professional rivalry than other causes, although the new Salon de la Nationale sought to organize rather smaller and more coherent exhibitions and was more tolerant of innovative artistic trends. These, including the movement to revalorize the decorative arts, acquired their own venue in 1903 when the Salon d'Automne was founded. This Salon quickly established itself as a showcase for non-academic fine and applied art, a position it asserted through a policy of retrospectives, including the work of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1905), Manet (1905), Paul Gauguin (1906) and Cézanne (1907). Other exhibiting opportunities existed for artists outside the Salons. Throughout this period the number of private galleries grew: many of these could be hired by groups seeking exhibition space; a number of them sponsored individual and group exhibitions; and a few were prepared to support artists by buying up and promoting their work. The Impressionists in particular established a group identity by exhibiting outside the Salon (see Impressionism) in the eight Impressionist exhibitions (1874-86), the last of which contained a room devoted to Neo-impressionism. Exhibitions of individual Impressionists were also held by such dealers as Paul Durand-Ruel. By the turn of the century a powerful commercial infrastructure existed. At its center was a group of dealers-including Durand-Ruel, Georges Petit and Alexandre Rosenberg-who were prestigious suppliers of modern French art to the international market. Their galleries were complemented by smaller establishments, including those of Ambroise Vollard, Eugene Blot and Berthe Weill, partly dedicated to promoting innovative artists, as with Vollard's support of Cézanne and the Nabis. The 19th-century academicians had resisted the removal of the Salon's monopoly because they believed that commercialization of art would lead to debased standards. From their point of view this decline had taken place, but a concomitant of the market-led system was the promotion of such avant-garde art as Cubism, which, far from being geared to the lowest common denominator of taste, appealed only to an 'exclusive' group of consumers who were ready to accept a radical redefinition of aesthetic conventions. During the decade before World War I the avant-garde attracted a great deal of publicity. Fauvism and Cubism both acquired a public identity through a mixture of Salon exhibitions and dealers' backing. It was symptomatic of the changed Parisian art world that Pablo Picasso was able to make a reputation without participating in a Salon at all, although the Cubist movement as such was largely promoted through the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne. Despite its exceptional influence, however, the avant-garde was only one particular subdivision of the Parisian artistic community. By the end of this period several thousand artists exhibited at the Salons, mostly drawing on well-established genres. By no means all of these could hope to live well from their work, but their presence itself is an eloquent indicator of the size and potential of the Parisian art 'machine' after four decades of the republican regime. BIBLIOGRAPHYP. de Chennevieres: Souvenirs d'un directeur des beaux-arts, 5 vols (Paris, 1883-9) L. Bénédite: Le Musée national du Luxembourg: Catalogue raisonné (Paris, 1896-7) --: Catalogue sommaire des peintures et sculptures de l'école contemporaine exposées dans les galeries du Musée national du Luxembourg (Paris, 1913) G. Coquiot: Les Indépendants (Paris, 1920) A. Warnod: Les Berceaux de la jeune peinture (Paris, 1925) F. Jourdain: Le Salon d'Automne (Paris, 1926) C. White and H. White: Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World (New York, London and Sydney, 1965) J. Letheve: La Vie quotidienne des artistes français au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1968; Eng. trans., 1972) J. Warnod: Le Bateau Lavoir, 1892-1914 (Paris, 1975) --: La Ruche et Montparnasse (Paris, 1978) P. Vaisse: 'Salons, exposition et sociétés d'artistes en France, 1871-1914', Saloni, gallerie, musei e loro influenza sullo sviluppo dell'arte de secoli XIX e XX: Atti del XXIV congresso CIHA: Bologna 1979, pp. 141-55 --: La Troisième République et les peintres: Recherches sur les rapports des pouvoirs publiques et de la peinture en France de 1870-1914 (diss., U. Paris IV, 1980) J. Laurent: Arts et pouvoirs en France de 1793 à 1981 (St Etienne, 1983) M. R. Levin: Republican Art and Ideology in Late Nineteenth-century France (Ann Arbor, 1986) J. Milner: The Studios of Paris: The Capital of Art in the Late Nineteenth Century (London, 1988) T. Garb: '"L'Art féminin": The Formation of a Critical Category in Late Nineteenth-century France', A. Hist., xii (1989), pp. 39-65 D. Silverman: Art Nouveau in Fin-de-siècle France: Politics, Psychology and Style (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1989) N. Green: The Spectacle of Nature: Landscape and Bourgeois Culture in 19th-century France (Manchester, 1990) 2010-11-15 08:47:43 GMT 32 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/31-ART-LIFE-IN-FRANCE-:-1815---1869 ART LIFE IN FRANCE : 1815 - 1869Marked by a sequence of diverse political regimes (monarchy, republic and Empire), two revolutions and a coup d'état, Paris between 1815 and 1870 underwent a rapid succession of different artistic styles and movements: from Romanticism through Realism, to the beginnings of Impressionism. Nonetheless, a common feature united the unprecedented range of artistic production in this period: the aesthetic and institutional tension between tradition and innovation. Throughout the period, the Académie des Beaux-Arts remained in charge of official visual culture. In addition to advising the government on artistic policy, state patronage and purchases, the Académie dominated art education by supervising the curriculum at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The Académie also controlled the artists' access to the highly popular Salon exhibitions by providing the members of the selection jury. However, the hegemony of the official institutions was increasingly undermined by alternative art practices. Many important careers were built on little or no academic training. As prominent a painter as Eugène Delacroix never competed for the prestigious Prix de Rome. Gustave Courbet always insisted on the fact that he was self-taught. Moreover, both he and Edouard Manet, following Jacques-Louis David's example, circumvented the official circuit by exhibiting independently. In 1855, in response to the rejection of his two paintings from the Salon, Courbet organized his own retrospective exhibition in a private pavilion placed outside the entry to the Exposition Universelle, thus competing with the official retrospectives of Delacroix and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres inside. He repeated this gesture during the Exposition Universelle of 1867 and was followed by Manet, who had also been angered by his exclusion from the official exhibition. In 1863 the growing frustration of artists with the exclusion of works from the Salon led the government of Napoleon III to organize a parallel display of all the rejected works in a room adjacent to the regular Salon: the Salon des Refusés constituted the official acknowledgement of the crisis in the existing art system, as well as displaying work by some of the artists later called the Impressionists. Parallel to the institutional crisis was the crisis of the traditional aesthetic endorsed by the Académie and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Beginning with Stendhal, who in his review of the Salon of 1824 urged contemporary artists to represent 'the men of today and not those who probably never existed in those heroic times so distant from us' (Stendhal, p. 51), the notion of the present as incompatible with past artistic formulae entered the language of art criticism. While the attack on tradition by such Romantic artists as Théodore Gericault and Delacroix was fuelled by the discovery of a new subjectivity, the Realists rejected the old pictorial idioms in the name of commitment to concrete, visible reality. 'Show me an angel, and I will paint one', Courbet (p. 296) taunted his critics. Around the mid-century, modernity, advocated notably in Charles Adelaide's Salon criticism, emerged as a new aesthetic ideal. To be a modern artist signified not merely to embrace the new iconography of Parisian daily life but also to search for the visual codes capable of conveying a new kind of urban experience. The rapid devaluation of the academic practice, based as it was on respectful imitation of antiquity and the Old Masters, was succinctly summed up by the critic Théophile Thoré who declared in 1861: 'To be a master is to resemble no one.' The innovators were known as the avant-garde, a term originating in the Saint-Simonian discourse of social utopia, which designated opposition both to the artistic and the social and political establishment: Courbet styled himself as a missionary of social progress, and Manet combined his provocative artistic stance with radical political opinions. In the heterogeneous cultural landscape of 19th-century Paris, the avant-garde's work struck a self-consciously dissonant note in relation to the output of those artists (e.g. Alexandre Cabanel and William Bouguereau) who continued to perpetuate the academic tradition. However, the avant-garde was less of a fixed artistic identity than a mode of challenging the status quo, which certain ambitious artists employed at times. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, the Second Empire's court sculptor, was also the author of a resolutely unconventional group for the façade of the new Opéra, the Dance (1867-8), which scandalized Parisian opinion. Autonomous avant-garde practice opened new possibilities for women artists who could not receive training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts until the 1880s. Some women achieved considerable artistic and financial success in this period. Rosa Bonheur, a painter of animals and rural subjects, was the first female artist to receive the prestigious cross of the French Légion d'honneur, conferred on her in 1865 by Empress Eugénie, who declared that 'genius had no sex.' As they fashioned their careers independently of official institutions, the artists became increasingly involved with commercial galleries, which under the Second Empire became important alternative public arenas of display. Such Parisian dealers as Martinet, Adolphe Goupil and Paul Durand-Ruel began in the 1860s to organize solo and group exhibitions of their artist-clients. Concomitantly, the artists' self-awareness as skilful entrepreneurs increased: for example the correspondence of Théodore Rousseau, a member of the Barbizon school, documents the artist's self-image as both an isolated genius and a shrewd businessman. A part of the continuing process of the commercialization of art was the opening of the first auction house in Paris in 1853, in the Hôtel Druot, not far from the Bourse-a proximity that helped symbolically to link the two institutions in the public mind. In addition to being an article of consumption, art was also increasingly becoming an object of investment and speculation. BIBLIOGRAPHYStendhal: 'Le Salon de 1824', J. Paris (29 Aug-24 Dec 1824); Eng. trans. in From the Classicists to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the 19th Century, ed. E. Gilmore Holt (New York, 1966), pp. 40-51 G. Courbet: 'Realism and Impressionism: France: Gustave Corbet, 1819-1877', Artists on Art, ed. R. Goldwater and M. Treves (New York, 1958), pp. 294-8 T. Thoré: 'Courbet and Millet', Realism and Tradition in Art, 1848-1900: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1966), pp. 54-6 A. Boime: The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (New York and Oxford, 1971) L. Nochlin: Realism (Harmondsworth, 1971) T. J. Clark: The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848-51 (London, 1973) French Painting, 1774-1830: The Age of Revolution (exh. cat., ed. F. J. Cummings, D. Rosenberg and R. Rosenblum; Paris, Grand Pal.; Detroit, Inst. A.; 1975) The Second Empire, 1852-1870: Art in France under Napoleon III (exh. cat., Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A., 1978) N. Bryson: Tradition and Desire: From David to Delacroix (Cambridge, 1984) C. Rosen and H. Zerner: Romanticism and Realism: The Mythology of Nineteenth-century Art (New York, 1984) T. J. Clark: The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (New York, 1985) L. Eitner: An Outline of 19th-century European Painting: From David to Cézanne, 2 vols (New York, 1987) M. Marrinan: Painting Politics for Louis-Philippe: Art and Ideology in Orleanist France, 1830-1848 (New Haven, 1987) N. McWilliam: 'Art, Labour and Mass Democracy: Debates on the Status of the Artist in France around 1848', A. Hist., xi/1 (March 1988), pp. 64-87 G. Pollock: 'Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity', Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art (London and New York, 1988), pp. 50-90 N. Green: 'Circuits of Production, Circuits of Consumption: The Case of Mid-nineteenth-century Art Dealing', A. J. [New York], xlviii/1 (Spring 1989), pp. 29-34 2010-11-15 08:47:21 GMT 31 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/30-ART-LIFE-IN-FRANCE-:-1789---1814 ART LIFE IN FRANCE : 1789 - 1814The French Revolution profoundly transformed the conditions in which art was both produced and received in Paris. The entire institutional framework was shaken up. A new understanding of the function of art in society emerged, and the role and status of the artist were also radically redefined. From the very beginning of the Revolution, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture came under attack as an institution of privilege. The offensive was led by the lower-rank academicians who organized themselves into a Commune des Arts. As a result of the Commune's repeated demands, the Académie was abolished in August 1793. In its place, an alternative, non-hierarchical association of all artists committed to the revolutionary cause was founded under the name Société Républicaine des Arts. In 1791, under pressure from the anti-academic opposition, the biennial Salon exhibition was removed from the auspices of the Académie and opened to all artists. This democratization of access dramatically increased the number of participants in the Salon, allowing as many as 21 women artists, hitherto hampered by restrictions of the Académie's membership, to show their work. Equally democratic was the new institution of the concours (open art competition), adopted during the Revolution as the basis of state patronage. During the Terror, the revolutionary government announced a whole series of concours in painting, sculpture and architecture in an effort to mobilize artists for the republican cause. In addition to having politicized art, these competitions were responsible for introducing contemporary events as subjects for the large-scale history paintings and public monuments. Even if-as Jacques Louis David's unfinished fragment of the Tennis Court Oath (1790; Versailles, Château) indicates-the actual execution of such time-consuming and costly works proved difficult in the unstable revolutionary situation, the new idea of public art devoted to contemporary history was of crucial future importance. The principle of open competition, together with the additional system of state prizes for the arts, served as a model for art administration in France throughout the 19th century. The museum was another lasting institutional innovation brought about by the Revolution. A public display of the Old Master works from the royal collections was inaugurated in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre on 10 August 1793, on the anniversary of the fall of the monarchy. This timing underscored the republican character of the institution, which aimed to transform the former property of the Crown into a national patrimony. Another function of the museum was to replace the Académie as the principal artistic training ground. Under the Directory (1795-9), the museum collections were significantly expanded by the masterpieces looted by Napoleon during his military campaigns in Flanders and Italy. The museum became a tool for establishing French cultural hegemony, a function that it retained under the Consulate and the Empire. Coexisting with the desire to construct and preserve national patrimony was the revolutionary impulse to destroy all cultural signs of the past. Acts of vandalism intensified after the fall of the monarchy: it was argued that the memory of the ancient régime could not be eradicated without eliminating its emblems and symbols. Among the Parisian monuments that suffered from devastation were the tombs of French kings in Saint-Denis Abbey, the sculptures of the west portals of Notre-Dame and the royal statue on the Place des Victoires. Cultural preservation and destruction were both products of the republican discourse on the social utility of art. Having inherited the Enlightenment's belief in the formative effect of images, the revolutionaries put the arts in the service of the vast project of 'regeneration' of French society. In addition to encouraging artists to commemorate the Revolution and to glorify liberty and patriotism, the republican government promoted images of such domestic virtues as conjugal love and motherly affection. In the process of harnessing art to social purpose, the public role of the artist gained importance, as epitomized by David. Under Jacobin rule, David produced such potent revolutionary icons as the Death of Marat (1793; Brussels, Museum. A. Anc.). He was also practically in charge of orchestrating mass symbolic behavior in his role as the organizer of republican festivals. While emphasizing the necessity of civic commitment, the Revolution also conferred on artists the 'dignity' of emancipated professionals. Yet difficulties in the artists' situation also became evident in the 1790s. In addition to the task of having to invent new language to depict the unprecedented revolutionary situation, artists confronted the difficulty of trying to match the slow pace of creation with the rapid pace of political events. Moreover, with the scarcity of private patronage and the frequent lack of promised government support, many artists experienced severe economic problems. Partly to address these, and partly to institutionalize the artists' autonomous position, David initiated a new mode of public art display: in 1799 he organized an independent exhibition of his painting, the Intervention of the Sabine Women (Paris, Louvre), for which he charged admission. This display set a precedent for the future alternative exhibitions of the 19th-century avant-garde artists. The professional situation of women artists worsened after October 1793 when, following the official ban on women's political clubs, female artists were excluded from the Société Républicaine des Arts. Under the Directory, no women were nominated for membership of the Institut National, when it was created in 1795 as a republican version of the Académie. During the Consulate and the First Empire (1799-1814), the art institutions inherited from the Revolution became part of the legitimization apparatus created by Napoleon I. In 1804, to glorify his regime and to 'preserve the superiority of France in the new century', Napoleon instituted the Decennial Prizes to be awarded for the best work produced by the French school each decade. The first award was made in 1810. The jury consisted of the members of the Institut National, which had emerged as the supreme arbiter of French art life. Napoleon I also granted artists such important privileges as access to the prestigious Légion d'honneur and exemption from military conscription. During the Empire, the title of Premier Peintre was re-instituted and conferred on David. In this period, the Dravidian school prevailed at the Salon exhibitions, with vast canvases commissioned by Napoleon I to commemorate his military campaigns. Antoine-Jean Gros's large-scale representations of the glory and horror of the Napoleonic wars, such as the Victims of the Plague at Jaffa (1804; Paris, Louvre; for illustration see Gros, Antoine-jean), were at once highly successful and were also very influential on the following generation of French Romantic painters. Napoleonic rule produced other proto-Romantic iconographies. Anne-Louis Girodet's Burial of Atala (exh. Salon 1808; Paris, Louvre), based on François René Chateaubriand's novel, exemplified the wave of Christian revival in art and literature following the Concordat (1802). Executed c. 1801 for the château of Malmaison, commissions to Girodet and François Gérard on themes from James Macpherson's 'works of Ossian' suited Bonaparte's personal literary taste. The Empress Josephine's patronage, meanwhile, contributed to a vogue for the Troubadour style, represented by the work of Pierre Revoil and Fleury Richard (e.g. Francis I and his Sister, exh. Salon 1804; Arenenberg, Napoleonmus.). BIBLIOGRAPHYJ. A. Leith: The Idea of Art as Propaganda in France, 1750-1799 (Toronto, 1965) F. Antal: Classicism and Romanticism (London, 1966) R. Rosenblum: Transformations in Late Eighteenth-century Art (Princeton, 1967) H. Honour: Neo-classicism (Harmondsworth, 1968) French painting, 1774-1830: The Age of Revolution (exh. cat., ed. F. J. Cummings, P. Rosenberg and R. Rosenblum; Paris, Grand Pal.; New York, Met.; 1974-5) W. Olander: 'Pour transmettre à la postérité': French painting and the Revolution, 1774-1795 (Ann Arbor, 1984) T. Crow: Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-century Paris (New Haven and London, 1985) A. Boime: A Social History of Modern Art, vols i and ii (Chicago and London, 1987-90) P. Bordes and R. Michel, eds: Aux armes et aux arts! Les Arts de la Révolution, 1789-1799 (Paris, 1988) La Révolution française et l'Europe (exh. cat., ed. J.-R. Gaborit; Paris, Grand Pal., 1989) E. Lajer-Burcharth: 'David's Sabine Women: Body, Gender and Republican Culture under the Directory', A. Hist., xiv/3 (Sept 1991), pp. 399-430 E. Pommier: L'Art de la liberté: Doctrines et débats de la Révolution française (Paris, 1991) 2010-11-15 08:46:52 GMT 30 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/29-ART-LIFE-IN-FRANCE-:-1789---1814 ART LIFE IN FRANCE : 1789 - 1814The French Revolution profoundly transformed the conditions in which art was both produced and received in Paris. The entire institutional framework was shaken up. A new understanding of the function of art in society emerged, and the role and status of the artist were also radically redefined. From the very beginning of the Revolution, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture came under attack as an institution of privilege. The offensive was led by the lower-rank academicians who organized themselves into a Commune des Arts. As a result of the Commune's repeated demands, the Académie was abolished in August 1793. In its place, an alternative, non-hierarchical association of all artists committed to the revolutionary cause was founded under the name Société Républicaine des Arts. In 1791, under pressure from the anti-academic opposition, the biennial Salon exhibition was removed from the auspices of the Académie and opened to all artists. This democratization of access dramatically increased the number of participants in the Salon, allowing as many as 21 women artists, hitherto hampered by restrictions of the Académie's membership, to show their work. Equally democratic was the new institution of the concours (open art competition), adopted during the Revolution as the basis of state patronage. During the Terror, the revolutionary government announced a whole series of concours in painting, sculpture and architecture in an effort to mobilize artists for the republican cause. In addition to having politicized art, these competitions were responsible for introducing contemporary events as subjects for the large-scale history paintings and public monuments. Even if-as Jacques Louis David's unfinished fragment of the Tennis Court Oath (1790; Versailles, Château) indicates-the actual execution of such time-consuming and costly works proved difficult in the unstable revolutionary situation, the new idea of public art devoted to contemporary history was of crucial future importance. The principle of open competition, together with the additional system of state prizes for the arts, served as a model for art administration in France throughout the 19th century. The museum was another lasting institutional innovation brought about by the Revolution. A public display of the Old Master works from the royal collections was inaugurated in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre on 10 August 1793, on the anniversary of the fall of the monarchy. This timing underscored the republican character of the institution, which aimed to transform the former property of the Crown into a national patrimony. Another function of the museum was to replace the Académie as the principal artistic training ground. Under the Directory (1795-9), the museum collections were significantly expanded by the masterpieces looted by Napoleon during his military campaigns in Flanders and Italy. The museum became a tool for establishing French cultural hegemony, a function that it retained under the Consulate and the Empire. Coexisting with the desire to construct and preserve national patrimony was the revolutionary impulse to destroy all cultural signs of the past. Acts of vandalism intensified after the fall of the monarchy: it was argued that the memory of the ancient régime could not be eradicated without eliminating its emblems and symbols. Among the Parisian monuments that suffered from devastation were the tombs of French kings in Saint-Denis Abbey, the sculptures of the west portals of Notre-Dame and the royal statue on the Place des Victoires. Cultural preservation and destruction were both products of the republican discourse on the social utility of art. Having inherited the Enlightenment's belief in the formative effect of images, the revolutionaries put the arts in the service of the vast project of 'regeneration' of French society. In addition to encouraging artists to commemorate the Revolution and to glorify liberty and patriotism, the republican government promoted images of such domestic virtues as conjugal love and motherly affection. In the process of harnessing art to social purpose, the public role of the artist gained importance, as epitomized by David. Under Jacobin rule, David produced such potent revolutionary icons as the Death of Marat (1793; Brussels, Museum. A. Anc.). He was also practically in charge of orchestrating mass symbolic behavior in his role as the organizer of republican festivals. While emphasizing the necessity of civic commitment, the Revolution also conferred on artists the 'dignity' of emancipated professionals. Yet difficulties in the artists' situation also became evident in the 1790s. In addition to the task of having to invent new language to depict the unprecedented revolutionary situation, artists confronted the difficulty of trying to match the slow pace of creation with the rapid pace of political events. Moreover, with the scarcity of private patronage and the frequent lack of promised government support, many artists experienced severe economic problems. Partly to address these, and partly to institutionalize the artists' autonomous position, David initiated a new mode of public art display: in 1799 he organized an independent exhibition of his painting, the Intervention of the Sabine Women (Paris, Louvre), for which he charged admission. This display set a precedent for the future alternative exhibitions of the 19th-century avant-garde artists. The professional situation of women artists worsened after October 1793 when, following the official ban on women's political clubs, female artists were excluded from the Société Républicaine des Arts. Under the Directory, no women were nominated for membership of the Institut National, when it was created in 1795 as a republican version of the Académie. During the Consulate and the First Empire (1799-1814), the art institutions inherited from the Revolution became part of the legitimization apparatus created by Napoleon I. In 1804, to glorify his regime and to 'preserve the superiority of France in the new century', Napoleon instituted the Decennial Prizes to be awarded for the best work produced by the French school each decade. The first award was made in 1810. The jury consisted of the members of the Institut National, which had emerged as the supreme arbiter of French art life. Napoleon I also granted artists such important privileges as access to the prestigious Légion d'honneur and exemption from military conscription. During the Empire, the title of Premier Peintre was re-instituted and conferred on David. In this period, the Dravidian school prevailed at the Salon exhibitions, with vast canvases commissioned by Napoleon I to commemorate his military campaigns. Antoine-Jean Gros's large-scale representations of the glory and horror of the Napoleonic wars, such as the Victims of the Plague at Jaffa (1804; Paris, Louvre; for illustration see Gros, Antoine-jean), were at once highly successful and were also very influential on the following generation of French Romantic painters. Napoleonic rule produced other proto-Romantic iconographies. Anne-Louis Girodet's Burial of Atala (exh. Salon 1808; Paris, Louvre), based on François René Chateaubriand's novel, exemplified the wave of Christian revival in art and literature following the Concordat (1802). Executed c. 1801 for the château of Malmaison, commissions to Girodet and François Gérard on themes from James Macpherson's 'works of Ossian' suited Bonaparte's personal literary taste. The Empress Josephine's patronage, meanwhile, contributed to a vogue for the Troubadour style, represented by the work of Pierre Revoil and Fleury Richard (e.g. Francis I and his Sister, exh. Salon 1804; Arenenberg, Napoleonmus.). BIBLIOGRAPHYJ. A. Leith: The Idea of Art as Propaganda in France, 1750-1799 (Toronto, 1965) F. Antal: Classicism and Romanticism (London, 1966) R. Rosenblum: Transformations in Late Eighteenth-century Art (Princeton, 1967) H. Honour: Neo-classicism (Harmondsworth, 1968) French painting, 1774-1830: The Age of Revolution (exh. cat., ed. F. J. Cummings, P. Rosenberg and R. Rosenblum; Paris, Grand Pal.; New York, Met.; 1974-5) W. Olander: 'Pour transmettre à la postérité': French painting and the Revolution, 1774-1795 (Ann Arbor, 1984) T. Crow: Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-century Paris (New Haven and London, 1985) A. Boime: A Social History of Modern Art, vols i and ii (Chicago and London, 1987-90) P. Bordes and R. Michel, eds: Aux armes et aux arts! Les Arts de la Révolution, 1789-1799 (Paris, 1988) La Révolution française et l'Europe (exh. cat., ed. J.-R. Gaborit; Paris, Grand Pal., 1989) E. Lajer-Burcharth: 'David's Sabine Women: Body, Gender and Republican Culture under the Directory', A. Hist., xiv/3 (Sept 1991), pp. 399-430 E. Pommier: L'Art de la liberté: Doctrines et débats de la Révolution française (Paris, 1991) 2010-11-15 08:46:33 GMT 29 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/28-FRENCH-SCULPTURE-:-1814-1900 FRENCH SCULPTURE : 1814-1900FRENCH SCULPTURE : 1814 - 1900 Styles Artists and Influences1814-1900(1) Influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.(2) Public statuary and the influence of government.(3) Romanticism, academicism and 'national' sculpture.(4) Challenges to Beaux-Arts classicism. (1) Influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.For the greater part of the 19th century French sculpture was dominated by the training of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Although histories of painting in the period have largely dismissed the Ecole as retardatory and nugatory, for sculpture-always more dependent on 'official' support-it was crucial. Its hegemony was challenged by the more artisanal courses offered by the Ecole Gratuite de Dessin (or 'Petite Ecole'), especially after 1831 when Jean-Hilaire Belloc (1786-1866) took over the direction of this lesser rival, but up to the 1880s the history of French sculpture is preponderantly the history of the winners of the Prix de Rome: David d'Angers, François Rude, James Pradier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Henri Chapu, Alexandre Falguière, Louis-Ernest Barrias and Antonin Mercié.By mid-century it was increasingly felt that the series of concours (competitions) punctuating the curriculum and culminating in the Prix de Rome were an outdated and inaccurate yardstick for gauging student potential. An attempt to reform the system in 1863 largely misfired, the reformers only partially succeeding in their aim of breaking the hold of the Institut de France over the Ecole, since most of the professors were members of both bodies. They did, however, bring to an end the system of apprenticeship, in which students had learnt their craft in the private studios of their chosen masters, and sculpture studios were established within the Ecole itself. An attempt to modify the concours and the regulations affecting envois (works sent back from Rome by prizewinners) foundered against strong internal opposition. The rigours of the training in Paris, based on study from life and from antique models, were somewhat lessened when the successful student reached Rome; there is conspicuously greater variety in sculptors' Roman envois than in their Prix de Rome entries, the latter executed under duress within the precincts of the Ecole. These envois include some of the most striking works of the 19th century-Pradier's Bacchante (marble, exh. Salon 1819; Rouen, Mus. B.-A.), Guillaume's Anacreon (marble, exh. Salon 1852; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay), Carpeaux's Ugolino and his Children (version, bronze, 1857-63; Paris, Jard. Tuileries), Chapu's Christ with Angels (plaster, 1857; Le Mée-sur-Seine, Mus. Chapu), Mercié's bronze group Gloria victis (plaster version, exh. Salon 1874; Paris, Petit Pal.); although some of them met with doctrinaire strictures from members of the Institut or from the professors on the grounds either that their subjects were neither classical nor biblical or that their style was too personal, such departures were a common occurrence and were in most cases accepted as indications of the qualities expected of laureates. In the Ecole itself the range of source material was widened, particularly from the 1840s, to include a generous selection of casts of Quattrocento, High Renaissance and post-Renaissance works. Casts of Greek works up to the Early Classical period were also acquired. Concessions were thus made to eclecticism but none to the contemporary world. Modern subject-matter was formally proscribed for student envois in 1872, and to this has been ascribed the growing interest among Ecole-trained sculptors in allegory as a vehicle-however indirect-for commentary on modern life and events.Government patronage, whether through a ministry, the Court or municipal or regional bodies, provided the most dependable source of employment for sculptors. The history of sculpture in this period is closely linked with changing political regimes and the projects that they initiated: the instability and transience of these regimes imposed on sculptors the necessity of adapting to new conditions in order to survive, a situation that brought into focus the question of the artist's social and political commitment. In the course of the century two sculptors in particular stood out for their refusal to compromise: David D'Angers, during the July Monarchy (1830-48) and in the early years of the Second Empire (1852-70); and Jules Dalou, after the Commune of 1871. In both cases fidelity to Republican ideals earned them periods of exile. (2) Public statuary and the influence of government.Training in sculpture at the Ecole did not accord in detail with the requirements of public statuary. Intended to inculcate elevated precepts and aesthetic ideals, it provided in only a general sense a suitable rhetorical language for the polemical or propagandist aims of the State, which in practice often called for an ability to convey specific political messages, through portraits, scenes of recent history or allegory. Overt political propaganda is most evident in works produced between 1815 and 1848. The government of the restored Bourbons revived projects initiated under the ancien régime and embarked on a series of monuments expressing national expiation for regicide and the Reign of Terror. Jean-Pierre Cortot and François-Joseph Bosio returned to pre-Revolutionary types of allegory and apotheosis in the sculpture of the Chapelle Expiatoire in Paris (e.g. Cortot's Marie-Antoinette Succoured by Religion, marble, c. 1825) and in the commissions of Charles X's government for statues of Louis XVI (begun 1827; Paris, Place de la Concorde) by Cortot and of Louis XVIII (1826; Paris, Pal. Bourbon) by Bosio.Following the Revolution of 1830 the new government of Louis-Philippe commandeered and adapted to its own ends schemes proposed in the previous decade, notably the decoration of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Madeleine, both in Paris, and the Porte d'Aix in Marseille. The government also returned Ste Geneviève, Paris, to the secular function of the Panthéon, which it had enjoyed between 1791 and 1821, with a new pediment (1830-37) commissioned from David d'Angers; undertook the sculptural embellishment of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile; and instituted a programme of polemical decorations at the Palais Bourbon. Considered overall, this group of schemes was impressively orchestrated; it suppressed all that was anti-Revolutionary in the Restoration projects, acknowledging the existence of Napoleon as Emperor, while extolling the military prowess of Bonaparte as General, promoting a State-sanctioned Catholic morality (hardly recognized as such by Catholic critics), reassimilating Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and a selected group of Revolutionary figures among the great men of the nation, and representing in staid allegories the moderate principles of constitutional monarchy. (3) Romanticism, academicism and 'national' sculpture.The climate of liberalism in the Salons of the early 1830s permitted younger sculptors, some of them affiliated with the Romantic tendency, to come before the public. Prix-de-Rome winner, François Rude, created a precedent for moderate emancipation from classical canons in the treatment of the nude, exhibiting relaxed Neapolitan genre subjects (see fig. 39). Antoine-Louis Barye and Christophe Fratin (1800/02-64) launched what was to become another vogue, Animalier Sculpture. Other forms of local colour-literary, geographical and historical-along with a colouristic handling of bronze emerged in the works of the Romantic sculptors Antonin-Marie Moine, Auguste Préault, Etienne-Hippolyte Maindron, Théodore Gechter, Jean-Bernard Du Seigneur (1808-66) and Jean-Jacques Feuchère. When Salon juries from 1836 began to suppress the more interesting work of this loose-knit school, some of its followers found alternative outlets in the expanding market for statuettes and decorative domestic sculptural ornament. Another alluring feature of the statuette trade was its accommodation of fashion and topicality, in the caricatures of Jean-Pierre Dantan, for example, and in delicate portrayals of stage personalities by Jean-Auguste Barre and others. Neither was the classical repertory neglected in this type of sculpture, the largest contribution coming from James Pradier, whose mythological themes were interspersed with modern erotic genre subjects.Remaining aloof from such commercial endeavours, David d'Angers, Antoine Etex and Rude maintained an individualist concept of a 'national' sculpture that led them finally into opposition with the July Monarchy. David d'Angers increasingly turned his attention to the task of honouring great men in commemorative statues, tombs, busts and portrait medallions. The commissioning of such statues in France dated back to the years just prior to the Revolution. The restored Bourbon monarchy gave the activity a wider, national, base by erecting statues in the subjects' places of birth. David d'Angers's achievement was in bringing his personal initiative to bear in the choice of subject and location, stimulating local interest and sponsorship but sometimes giving his own labours free of charge.The last major monument erected under the July Monarchy, the tomb of Napoleon I in the church of the Invalides, Paris, was characterized by an extreme aesthetic conservatism. The sculptors involved were Pradier (marble Victories, 1843-52), Duret (bronze allegories flanking door to the tomb, c. 1843) and Pierre-Charles Simart (marble allegorical reliefs and marble and bronze portrait statue, 1846-52). Such conservatism, which paradoxically the short-lived Second Republic (1848-52) did nothing to undermine, was inherited by the Second Empire (1852-70). The resurgence of academicism was accompanied by a comparative diffidence on the part of Napoleon III's government about political statements interpreted in monumental form. A lack of ideological content was compensated for by the sheer quantity of State commissions that were dedicated mainly to enlivening the surfaces of focal metropolitan buildings. 335 sculptors were employed between 1852 and 1857 on the restoration and extension of the Musée du Louvre, Paris; 131 sculptors worked from 1860 to 1875 on the Paris Opéra. Images of Napoleon III and of his imperial forebears appeared in the Louvre programme, but particular statements were swamped by an abundance of abstracted personifications and portraits of worthies. At the end of the 1860s the floridity of Charles Garnier's architectural conception of the new Opéra found in Carpeaux's allegorical group representing Dance (stone, 1866-9; in situ; a true sculptural counterpart, at least in the judgement of futurity: the immediate response from both the architect and the public was shock at what they deemed its excess and a demand for its removal.During the July Monarchy the family of Louis-Philippe, notably Ferdinand-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, had played its part, through personal patronage, in promoting the 'minor' Romantic genres in sculpture. Similarly, in the Second Empire certain sculptors received Court approval, which helped them to make their mark in both the private and the public domains. The florid styles of Carpeaux and ALBERT-ERNEST CARRIER-BELLEUSE were as much embedded in the tradition of decorative sculpture as in the traditions of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. It was the support that both these sculptors received from the imperial household that in the later years of the Empire established their styles as a viable alternative to academic orthodoxy. Of the two, only Carpeaux succeeded in forging, from an eclectic grounding, a truly personal style that was excitable and impressionistic and that transcended its sources; Carrier-Belleuse, inventive enough in decorative composition, was usually content with a pastiche of the Renaissance or Rococo periods.In certain cases, sculptors during the Second Empire were compelled to subordinate personal originality to the demands of archaeological reconstruction, since it was in the 1850s that Adolphe-Napoléon Didron and Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc introduced a more historically enlightened note into the restoration of such ancient monuments as Notre-Dame in Paris and the château of Pierrefonds in Oise. The erudite medievalism of Viollet-le-Duc's chief sculptural assistant, Geoffrey Dechaume (1816-92), is but one of the historicisms practised in this eclectic period.In creating Ugolino and his Children, Carpeaux revitalized the sculpted nude, sharing this ambition with a group of young sculptors who took their inspiration from Michelangelo and the 15th century and subsequently became known as 'Les Florentins'. Two members of the group, Alexandre Falguière and Paul Dubois (i), studied in Rome in the early 1860s and were preoccupied with the youthful male figure and with anatomical characterization as opposed to the normative idealization encouraged by the Ecole. After 1870 ANTONIN MERCIÉ and Louis-Ernest Barrias reinforced their early endeavours, and it was their emphasis on modelling and on emotive effects that informed much of the sculpture exhibited in the annual Salons between the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the beginning of the 20th century. Rodin, in his early works, was clearly indebted to them, his Age of Bronze (version, bronze, 1875-7; London, V&A; and St John the Baptist (version, bronze, 1878; Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyp.) both finding their closest counterparts in the pieces exhibited by Mercié in the Salons of the early 1870s.During the Third Republic (1871-1946), up to World War I, there was a tremendous increase in the number of commemorative statues being produced in Paris and the provinces, instigated mainly by the initiatives of regional and municipal governments, as for example the two monuments to the Republic commissioned by the City of Paris from Léopold Morice (1846-1920) (1883; Paris, Place de la République) and Jules Dalou (bronze, 1879-99; Paris, Place de la Nation;. Societies also commissioned works from sculptors, as for example the Société des Gens de Lettres, which commissioned Rodin's monument to the writer Honoré de Balzac (plaster, exh. Salon 1898; rejected by the Société; bronze version erected 1939, Paris, intersection Boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse). In the case of war memorials or monuments of national interest a local contribution or a fund raised from public subscription might be augmented by funds from the central government. From this period the biggest concentration of sculpture within the City of Paris was a municipal project, the Hôtel de Ville, requiring the collaboration of 230 sculptors. The building was embellished with many portraits of famous men and women of Paris, the sculptures combining costume pageantry with a new emphasis on realism.In outdoor commemorative monuments of the last two decades of the 19th century, such as Dalou's monument to Delacroix (bronze, unveiled 1890) in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, or Barrias's monument to Victor Hugo (inaugurated 1902; mostly destr. 1942) in the Place Victor-Hugo, Paris, elaborateness of composition and dramatic silhouette were the dominant trends. The variety of solutions proposed was a consequence of the increase in the numbers of such statues, as well as of the desire to educate through imagery. Here, as in the architecture of the same period, a total accommodation with the vocabulary of the Baroque was made. For David d'Angers, responsible for so many commemorations earlier in the century, the simple ingredients of a full-length portrait statue with subordinated attributes, an inscription and, optionally, reliefs on the pedestal illustrating incidents from the life of the subject, had been sufficient. To this type sculptors of the Third Republic added a wealth of allegory and of symbolic and anecdotal detail, such as had been used on tombs in the 17th and 18th centuries. (4) Challenges to Beaux-Arts classicism.The sculptural mood of the 1870s was elegiac, a response to France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). After the establishment of the Third Republic, public statuary in particular entered an ebullient and ingratiating phase. Rodin's début as an exhibitor at the Salon coincided with the elegiac phase, and against a background of what he saw as the charlatanism and false poetry of most Salon exhibits he pursued his own introverted researches in preparation for the unfinished Gates of Hell (bronze, 1880-1917; Paris, Mus. Rodin;. Some of his projects for commemorative monuments take the allegorizing mode of his contemporaries to its furthest limit; others, like that to Balzac, incorporated symbolism in a single figure. However, he always made the monumental rhetoric his own, endowing it with a personal feeling above all for the language of the body itself, developed through his immense output of drawings and experimental models. At the same time he aknowledged his debt both to Michelangelo and to medieval sculptors, while retaining links with the more immediate traditions of the 19th century. This occurred at a time when, simultaneously with the erection of statues to great writers of the Romantic movement, a reassessment was underway of the achievement of earlier Romantic sculptors, some of whom were still active in Rodin's youth.In the 1880s, within the Ecole, the innate conservatism of the more official sculptors made them ideal bulwarks of the establishment. In 1864 the post of Directeur of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts had been taken up by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste-Claude Eugène Guillaume; in 1878 it had passed to another sculptor, Paul Dubois (i), who retained it until his death in 1905, after which long-overdue reforms were finally introduced. However, in practice, the ascendancy of Rodin, who had been refused admission to the Ecole, and of Dalou, who had been a disappointed runner-up in the Prix de Rome, was an indication of the loosening of the grip of the Ecole on sculpture at large. Furthermore, at the Impressionist exhibition of 1881 EDGAR DEGAS showed his startlingly veristic wax sculpture of the Young Dancer of Fourteen (version, bronze, Rotterdam, Mus. Boymans-van Beuningen), a work closer in many ways to both contemporary and historic Italian sculpture than to anything then being produced in France. It took a critic of the originality of Joris-Karl Huysmans to appreciate the challenge being posed to the system. It was the first occasion in which an innovative painter-sculptor had cared to show his sculpture to the public at large; the vigorous modelling power of Théodore Gericault and Honoré Daumier remained a secret known only to frequenters of studios. After the Young Dancer of Fourteen, Degas, like them, chose not to exhibit his sculpture and turned exclusively to small-scale and experimental work in three dimensions.A problem of the period that was brought into focus by Rodin in his marbles was that of authenticity. The deputing of the final execution of carved works to assistants or professional praticiens had been practised before the 19th century, but as the technical aspects of sculpture became more developed and the entrepreneurial systems facilitating the division of tasks became more sophisticated, a reaction set in, exacerbated by the virtuosic appearance at the Salons of a number of marble showpieces depicting mythological subjects by such sculptors as Denys Puech and Laurent-Honoré Marqueste (1848-1920). The reaction had already been registered by the Ecole, where classes in stone- and marble-carving were instituted in 1883, but it was in the exhibitions of sculpture at the Salons of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts during the 1890s that a more fundamental revision made its appearance, such Symbolist sculptors as Jean Dampt, Jean Carriès, Jules Desbois and Pierre Roche preferring the dual identities of poet and craftsman to the grandiose conception of statuaire and finding alternatives to marble in wood, pewter, ceramic, wax, gypsum, ivory, lead and combinations of these. Such experiments with mixed-media and polychromed sculpture were not practised exclusively by those who favoured an Arts and Crafts approach. Polychromy had been tentatively espoused by Neo-classical sculptors earlier in the century, after the publication in Paris in 1815 of Antoine Quatremère de Quincy's account of the ancient Greeks' use of colour in sculpture, Le Jupiter olympien, and experimentation of this kind had increased around mid-century. Sometimes the motive was archaeological, as with Simart's chryselephantine reconstruction of the Athena Parthenos (1846) for the château of Dampierre, Marne (in situ); sometimes it was to contribute to a work's voluptuous charge, as in Auguste Clésinger's Woman Bitten by a Snake (exh. Salon 1847; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay), in which the white marble of the subject's body was originally set off against a bed of tinted flowers. A more consistent commitment to coloured sculpture, exploiting gorgeous combinations of bronze, marbles and semi-precious stones, had been demonstrated from the mid-1850s by Charles Cordier in his busts of ethnic types, and in the final decade of the 19th century this ostentatious and materialistic polychromy was practised by Jean-Léon Gérôme and Barrias. Degas and Gauguin, the painter-sculptors connected with the Impressionist movement, both used polychromy in their three-dimensional work; but although Gauguin's use of wood and ceramic and of colour to enhance the Symbolist import of his sculpture validates a comparison with the work of more conventional Symbolist sculptors, the hostile reception to such works as the polychromed wood reliefs Soyez mystérieuses (Paris, Mus. d'Orsay) and Soyez amoureuses et heureuses (Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.), which he showed in 1891 at the exhibition of Les XX in Brussels, and the rejection in 1895 of his stoneware statuette Oviri (1894; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay; from the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, showed how far beyond the boundaries of Europe his primitivism had taken him, as opposed to the restricted European travels of other fellow sculptors.In the 1890s two other, quite opposed, challenges to the closed world of Beaux-Arts classicism emerged. On the one hand, social-realistic representations in sculpture no longer had aesthetic and political inhibitions, as evidenced in the work of Jules Dalou, who led the way in the 1890s with his projects for a Monument to Workers (unexecuted; preparatory clay sketches, Paris, Petit. Pal.); on the other there was a fundamentalist classicism proposed by ARITIDE MAILLOL. It was the latter-the line of least resistance, in a sense-that was to prove the more enduring, providing a link between the long tradition of classically inspired sculpture in France and the formalist researches of the 20th century.BIBLIOGRAPHYLami L. Benoist: La Sculpture romantique (Paris, 1928/R 1994 [with intro. by L.-J. Lemaistre]) P. Pradel: La Sculpture du XIXe siècle au Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1958) G. Hubert: Les Sculpteurs italiens en France sous la Révolution, l'Empire et la Restauration, 1790-1830 (Paris, 1964) Pioneers of Modern Sculpture (exh. cat. by A. E. Elsen, London, Hayward Gal., 1973) M. Agulhon: 'Imagerie civique et décor urbain', Ethnol. Fr., v (1975), pp. 33-56 Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-century Sculpture (exh. cat., ed. J. Wasserman; Cambridge, MA, Fogg, 1975) M. Agulhon: 'La Statuomanie et l'histoire', Ethnol. Fr., viii (1978), pp. 145-72 B. G. Wennberg: French and Scandinavian Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, and Stockholm, 1978) The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-century Sculpture from North American Collections (exh. cat., ed. P. Fusco and H. W. Janson; Los Angeles, CA, Co. Mus. A.; Minneapolis, MN, Inst. A.; Detroit, MI, Inst. A.; Indianapolis, IN, Mus. A.; 1980-81) A. Le Normand: La Tradition classique et l'esprit romantique: Les Sculpteurs de l'Académie de France à Rome de 1824 à 1840 (Rome, 1981) De Carpeaux à Matisse: La Sculpture française de 1850 à 1914 dans les musées et les collections publiques du nord de la France (exh. cat. by A. Pingeot and others, Calais, Mus. B.-A.; Lille, Mus. B.-A.; Arras, Mus. B.-A.; and elsewhere; 1982-3) H. W. Janson: Nineteenth-century Sculpture (London, 1985) La Sculpture française au XIXe siècle (exh. cat., ed. A. Pingeot; Paris, Grand Pal., 1986) A. Le Normand-Romain: Mémoire de marbre: La Sculpture funéraire en France, 1804-1914 (Paris, 1995) 2010-11-15 08:46:11 GMT 28 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/27-FRENCH-SCULPTURE FRENCH SCULPTUREFrench Sculpture. The tradition of stone sculpture appears to be very ancient in France, at least in the south, for some reliefs decorated with schematized figures, from Entremont (Aix, Mus. Granet) and Ensérune (Ensérune, Mus.; both 2nd century BC), for example, predate the arrival of the Romans in the mid-1st century BC. The Romans introduced monumental sculpture, as seen in the decoration of many triumphal arches, steles and statues, for example at ARAUSIO (Orange) and Arles . Votive objects in wood and terracotta were common, while bronzeworking is attested by figures of a local character. After the barbarian invasions of the 4th century AD, the practice of these crafts declined.BIBLIOGRAPHYA. Before c 1500.B. c 1500-c 1600.C. c 1600-c 1700.D. c 1700-c 1814.E. c 1814-c 1900.F. After c 1900. A. Before c 1500.(1) Early medieval.(2) Gothic. (1) Early medieval.Under the Merovingians the marble workshops of the Pyrenean quarries continued to produce sculpted capitals and sarcophagi, for example at JOUARRE ABBEY. Generally, however, stone sculpture was confined to reliefs for screens, as in the mid-7th-century choir-screen from St Pierre-aux-Nonnains, Metz (now Metz, Mus. A. & Hist.), decorated mainly with ornamental interlace, foliate and geometric motifs, although occasionally biblical subjects and Christian symbols appear. In the Carolingian period, stucco was also worked, for example at Germigny.The development of stone sculpture in the 11th century did not follow a uniform progression. Shortly before 1050, at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire sculptors carved foliate capitals close to the Corinthian form, which were sometimes enlivened by narrative scenes. In Languedoc, apart from some early experiments in the Pyrenees, as at SAINT-GENIS-DES-FONTAINES, large-scale figure sculpture was developed only at the workshop of BERNARDUS GELDUINUS at St Sernin, Toulouse, at the end of the 11th century. The question of the beginnings of Romanesque sculpture in France is complicated by the difficulties of dating related buildings in northern Italy, but the Italian developments in sculpture must have preceded those of France. Cluny Abbey, however, by reason of its importance, must also have exercised a wide influence extending as far as Italy.A monumental carving style first appeared on capitals. In Normandy and northern France, they were carved mainly with ornamental motifs, foliage, faces and interlace, then, towards the end of the 11th century, with geometric motifs. Elsewhere in France-on the Loire, in Burgundy and Languedoc-historiated capitals appear, but the first great sculptured portals are found only from c. 1100. One of the earliest, the Porte Miègeville at St Sernin, Toulouse, bears the Ascension on the lintel and tympanum. The portal at St Pierre, Moissac is subdivided by a carved trumeau and bears themes drawn from the Apocalyptic vision, with a deeper relief in the upper part to render the carvings more visible. The figures are placed hierarchically and are packed in to fill the surface. No attempts were made realistically to represent proportion and expression, nor anatomy, draperies and perspective. Romanesque sculpture consists of highly schematized scenes, which respond to spiritual rather than to naturalistic concerns.Sculptors' styles were remarkably varied, however, and there are great differences between the angular, agitated figures at Autun Cathedral in Burgundy and the more massive and static appearance of either the cloister figures at Moissac in Languedoc or in the sculpture at Ste Foy, Conques, in the Rouergue. Furthermore, large religious scenes on portals and capitals were mixed with a fantastic repertory of animals, monsters and hybrid figures, which reveal popular traditions, eastern influences and barbarian and pagan reminiscences. In Burgundy, sculpture from Cluny Abbey (the hemicycle capitals and fragments from the west portal; influenced the whole region. Its sense of relief, dynamism and attention to expression are seen also at the portals of Ste Madeleine, Vézelay, as well as at Autun, where the Last Judgement is, quite exceptionally, signed, by GISLEBERTUS. In western France, in Poitou and Saintonge, portals rarely have tympana but the archivolts and wall surfaces of façades are covered with reliefs and friezes, as at ST PIERRE, AULNAY, and Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Poitiers. South-eastern France is characterized by sculpture of Classical inspiration at SAINT-GILLES-DU-GARD ABBEY and at St Trophîme, Arles, where figures in high relief stand under architraves.For carving in wood, lime, poplar and walnut were most popular. Some remarkable large-scale statues in wood were produced in this period: Virgin-reliquaries seated on thrones, for example at St Philibert, Tournus and Saint-Nectaire (Puy-de-Dôme), and coloured figures of the crucified Christ, as at St Pierre, Moissac, and Le Puy. These stylized and hieratic figures, with their simplified facial features, have a profoundly religious grandeur. (2) Gothic.Gothic sculpture originated in the Ile-de-France at the same time as the new architectural style, in the mid-12th century, while Romanesque was still perpetuated in southern France. The portals of SAINT-DENIS ABBEY are mutilated, but the west ('Royal') portal of Chartres Cathedral exemplifies the new style. The hierarchical positioning of the figures and the stylized forms are Romanesque characteristics, but these are now combined with rigorous composition and the perfect adaptation of the sculptures to the architectural setting: column statues fit their embrasures exactly; tympana are less crammed with figures; reliefs are more vigorous and the iconographic programme is more coherent. This style was highly influential in the second half of the 12th century, with repercussions as far away as Santiago de Compostela Cathedral (Portica de la Gloria) in northern Spain.Around 1200 the influence of Classical sculpture is suggested by attempts to represent more coordinated and supple forms, idealized facial types and fine, simple draperies. This style can be seen at Sens Cathedral and, at the beginning of the 13th century, on the transept portals of Chartres Cathedral (see Chartres, fig. 4) and in the Visitation workshop on the west front of Reims Cathedral. Iconographic themes had also evolved. The Coronation of the Virgin, represented for the first time at Senlis Cathedral (c. 1170), was connected with the Glorification of Christ and the Triumph of the Church. In the 13th century, additional subjects included local saints, biblical scenes and the illustration of scientific knowledge and daily life. The façade of Amiens Cathedral constitutes a typical example of the monumental sculpture of the great cathedrals: the trumeau Christ (the 'Beau Dieu') and the Last Judgement on the central portal are flanked by portals dedicated to the Virgin and to diocesan saints. Figure sculpture was henceforth reserved for façades and abandoned on capitals.Towards the middle of the 13th century, statuary on portals and in interiors became more independent of the architecture, at the cathedrals of Reims and Bourges, for example, and the Apostles in the Sainte-Chapelle. Later medieval portals show a development towards more ornamental forms: niches with tall canopies, pierced tympana and low-relief panels. Tombs were surmounted by effigies, and altarpieces, initially of modest size, grew increasingly larger.The styles of sculpture also changed and reflected the evolution of contemporary thought. Figures were humanized and became more animated and expressive, as in the work of the JOSEPH MASTER and Reims at Reims Cathedral in the mid-13th century. Although verisimilitude of facial features and perspective were not predominant artistic concerns, effigies and donor statues demonstrate an increasing interest in portraiture. At the same time a style characterized by elegant, idealized figures with elongated proportions and sinuous forms was emerging, which can already be seen in the Virgin (c. 1250) on the north-transept portal of Notre-Dame, Paris. It has been associated with the tastes of princely patrons, and in the 14th century it was combined with artistic influences from Italy, notably through contact with Angevin Naples and the Avignon papacy, to form the so-called International Gothic, a courtly, refined and slightly unreal style, represented in such sculptures as the fireplace statues in the hall of Jean, Duc de Berry's palace in Poitiers. There was also more secular sculpture in the 14th century, the result of increasing lay patronage; and owing to the survival of royal and aristocratic accounts, the names of sculptors begin to be known, many revealing Netherlandish origins: JEAN PÉPIN DE HUY, JEAN DE LIÈGE (I), ANDRÉ BEAUNEVEU of Valenciennes and JEAN DE CAMBRAI.From the end of the 14th century, a new stylistic tradition, characterized by agitated gestures and movements, and coarser, more sorrowful expressions, developed alongside this courtly style. Religious crisis, the misfortunes brought on by epidemics and war, and a more personal devotional emphasis have all been associated with its formation. New subjects were represented, first in eastern France: the Virgin of Mercy, the Ecce homo and the Entombment. The style is exemplified especially in the work of CLAUS SLUTER, who arrived (c. 1385) at the Burgundian court in Dijon from the Netherlands. The statues of his ducal patrons for the portal and the prophets for the Well of Moses at the Charterhouse of Champmol introduced a new realism, which was combined with a lyrical vigour in the voluminous, deep and strongly shadowed draperies.The influence of Sluter's honest and dramatic style is seen in all subsequent 15th-century sculpture. The Burgundian court at Dijon became an international centre, where Sluter's nephew, Claus de Werve from the northern Netherlands, Juan de la Huerta from Spain and Antoine Le Moiturier from France succeeded one another as ducal sculptors. A more elegant and sober style was maintained in the Bourbonnais and the Loire Valley with Jacques Morel, to whom is sometimes attributed the delightful alabaster effigy of Agnès Sorel (d 1450) in Loches Castle, and with Michel Colombe, sculptor of the funerary monument of Francis II, Duke of Brittany, and his Wife, Marguerite de Foix (1499-1507) in Nantes Cathedral. The two influences spread, sometimes juxtaposed, as in the statues of the Albi Cathedral choir-screen, or even combined, as in the Entombment (1496) in the Benedictine abbey church at Solesmes. The design of the Entombment shows, moreover, the arrival in France of Italian decorators, who executed the framing pilasters and introduced Renaissance motifs into France. The first wave of Italian influence was in Provence, geographically close to Italy, where Francesco Laurana was summoned from Naples by René I, Duke of Anjou, and where, in Avignon and Marseille, he worked until 1481. In Normandy, Cardinal Georges I d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen and Viceroy of Milan, brought Italian sculptors to the château of Gaillon, where they worked from 1502. In the Ile-de-France and the Loire Valley they were imported by Charles VIII (reg 1483-98) and Louis XII (reg 1498-1515) in the aftermaths of their campaigns in Italy. Guido Mazzoni was the first Italian Renaissance sculptor to work at the French Court, arriving from Naples in 1495. His major work, the tomb of Charles VIII in Saint-Deris Abbey, near Paris, sculpted after the King's death in 1498, was destoryed in 1798, but engravings show a sarcophagus, a kneeling king and four angels of a somewhat French pattern, with Italianate roundels along the sides.BIBLIOGRAPHYH. Focillon: L'Art des sculpteurs romans (Paris, 1931) A. Gardner: Medieval Sculpture in France (Cambridge, 1931) M. Aubert: La Sculpture française au moyen-âge (Paris, 1946) E. Panofsky: Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St Denis and its Art Treasures (New Jersey, 1946) L. Reau: L'Art réligieux du moyen âge: La Sculpture (Paris, 1946) J. Evans: Art in Medieval France (London, 1948) L. Lefrancois-Pillion: L'Art du XIVe siècle en France (Paris, 1954) T. Muller: Sculpture in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain, 1400-1500, Pelican Hist. A. (Harmondsworth, 1966) R. Branner: Chartres Cathedral (New York, 1969) Y. Christe: Les Grands Portails romans (Geneva, 1969) W. Forsyth: The Entombment of Christ: French Sculptures of the XVth and XVIth Centuries (Cambridge, 1970) W. Sauerländer: Gotische Skulptur in Frankreich, 1140-1270 (Munich and Paris, 1970; Eng. trans., London, 1972) Les Fastes du gothique: Le Siècle de Charles V (exh. cat., ed. F. Baron; Paris, Grand Pal., 1981) E. Vergnolle: Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire et la sculpture du XIe siècle (Paris, 1985) 2. c 1500-c 1600.At Cardinal Georges I d'Amboise's château at Gaillon the influence of Italian artists was felt initially through imported works of art, heralded by the arrival in 1506 of the Garden Fountain (dismantled 1759) carved specifically for the location by Antonio della Porta and his nephew Pace Gagini. The tomb of Raoul de Lannoy and Jeanne de Poix (1507-8) in the parish church of Folleville in Picardy, also carved in Italy by della Porta and Gagini, is decorated along the face of the monument with roundels, flanked with putti, in a chastely simple manner that is characteristically Italian and oddly at variance with the richly ornamented Gothic niche in which the sarcophagus has been placed. In the Ile-de-France a series of royal tombs commissioned from Italian sculptors by Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I introduced a national taste for the Italian manner, generally modified through the continuance of local traditions. The tomb commissioned in 1502 by Louis XII from Girolamo Viscardi of Genoa and other Italian sculptors in memory of the dukes of Orléans (ex-church of the Celestine, Paris; Saint-Denis Abbey) is derived from a French type, with a reclining figure on the sarcophagus. However, the tomb's most striking feature, the Twelve Apostles in classical niches along the sides of the sarcophagus, inserted in the place of the traditional weepers, has no precedent in French art. Louis XII's own tomb in Saint-Denis, commissioned by Francis I from Antonio Giusti (1479-1519) and Giovanni Giusti (1485-1549) and completed in 1531, is even more frankly Italianate, translating the traditional French gisants into Italian statuettes and emphasizing the four sides of the monument with large statues of seated Virtues facing outwards, suggesting some knowledge of Michelangelo's designs for the tomb of Julius II (completed 1547; Rome, S Pietro in Vincoli).The first French sculptor to imitate the Italians with equal skill was Michel Colombe, although his development is difficult to assess, since the earliest surviving sculptures with which his name is associated were made in the early 16th century when he was already in his sixties. The most elaborate is the funerary monument of Francis II, Duke of Brittany, and his Wife, Marguerite de Foix (1499-1507; Nantes Cathedral; for illustration. It was originally attributed to Jérôme de Fiesole, who may have been responsible for some of the Italianate details, while the involvement of the painter Jean Perréal, who had a knowledge of contemporary Italian painting and who is accredited with the general design of the monument, must also explain some of the Italian influence in the ornament. Nevertheless, the conception of the tomb, flanked with the four Cardinal Virtues, is purely French and is derived from the vigorous tradition of Gothic sculpture in the area around Tours, where Colombe is recorded as being active from 1473. The result is a remarkably homogeneous fusion of influences. Colombe's relief altarpiece of St George and the Dragon, carved within a frame of arabesques and bucrania by Jérôme Pacherot, was commissioned by Cardinal Georges I d'Amboise for the chapel at the château of Gaillon. It is more purely Italianate and probably reflects both the taste of the Cardinal and the concentration of work by Italian sculptors in Normandy in the period when it was carved.During the early part of the 16th century most of the secular work inspired by Italian sources tended to be ornamental, while religious work tended to be figurative. This tendency was dramatically altered by the advent of the second generation of Italian sculptors in France, centred on Francis I's new château at Fontainebleau (rebuilding and enlargements begun 1528: ROSSO FIORENTINO arrived in 1530 to work there, and FRANCESCO PRIMATICCIO came in 1532. The Galerie François I in the château, with its rich combination of panels in fresco and stucco figures in high relief, marked the arrival of a wall-painting tradition deriving from the work of Raphael, Michelangelo and Giulio Romano, in which the element of sculpture was given a new emphasis. Although stone-carving played little part in the work at Fontainebleau, the elegant, elongated figures in stucco, which have an essential role in the overall aesthetic effect, had a lasting influence on the French tradition of sculpture in stone or bronze.The development of this distinctively French variant of international MANNERISM was reinforced by the arrival of Benvenuto Cellini at the French Court in 1540. The two certain works that survive from his stay in France, the Nymph of Fontainebleau (c. 1542-3; Paris, Louvre) and the gold and enamel salt of Francis I (1540-43; Vienna, Kunsthistoriche. Museum.; benvenuto, show a debt to Michelangelo's reclining allegorical figures on the Medici tombs (begun 1521) in the New Sacristy of S Lorenzo, Florence, transforming them into an elegant, decorative ideal that was much admired and imitated in France long after Cellini had returned to Italy in 1545. The style was developed by PIERRE BONTEMPS, who worked with Primaticcio at Fontainebleau; by JACQUIOT PONCE, who collaborated on the tombs of Francis I (1559-62) and Henry II and Catherine de' Medici (both Saint-Denis Abbey;); by Jean Goujon, whose high-relief sculpture (1552-5; in situ but restored) on the Cour Carrée of the Palais du Louvre and reliefs (vertical ones in situ; horizontal ones Paris, Louvre; see Goujon, jean,) on the Fountain of the Innocents (1547-9; Paris, Place des Innocents; see Fountain,) transposed the style of the Fontainebleau stuccoists to Paris; and by GERMAIN PILON, much of whose work derives from his early association with Primaticcio. Although Pilon's style shares a common source with Goujon's, the former's sculpture marks a break with the linear, elegant manner of the latter, adopting an expressive realism in his tomb sculptures for Henry II and Chancellor René de Birague (bronze, 1584-5) and Valentine Balbiani (marble, 1573-4; both Paris, Louvre). This realism was widely imitated by his followers, including Barthélemy Prieur in the bronze Monument for the Heart of Constable Anne de Montmorency (1571; Paris, Louvre) and the marble and bronze wall monument to Christophe de Thou (1582-5; Paris, Louvre; Saint-Denis Abbey) and Barthélemy Tremblay, Simon Guillain and Jean Warin, whose work continued the tradition of Pilon well into the 17th century.C. c 1600-c 1700.As the importance of Fontainebleau declined in the early 1600s, portraiture became the most significant form of sculpture. The most important work of this period, Giambologna's bronze equestrian statue of Henry IV (destr. 1796), erected on the Pont Neuf in Paris in 1614, was the first in a line of equestrian portraits of successive monarchs from Henry IV to Louis XVI, all ultimately derived from the antique statue of Marcus Aurelius (2nd century AD; Rome, Mus. Capitolino). Apart from Bernini, whose brief visit to Paris in 1665 led to the production of an absurdly unsatisfactory equestrian statue of Louis XIV, which was later altered by François Girardon but survives in the gardens at the château of Versailles, Italian sculptors were not, on the whole, employed by the French Court after 1614. However, Italian influences remained so strong in the early decades of the 17th century that it is difficult to distinguish a specifically French style of sculpture that was distinct from the Italian or Italo-Flemish manner prevalent in French sculpture during this period. For example, the robust elegance of the four bronze Slaves, made by Pietro Francavilla for the base of the statue of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf but not cast until 1618, betrays the sculptor's training in the studio of Giambologna and is characteristic of the Mannerist tendency in French sculpture, which remained strong in Paris until the return of JACQUES SARAZIN from Rome in 1628. Sarazin had worked in Rome since 1610 and had acquired first-hand knowledge of the work of Carlo Maderno, Domenichino and François Du Quesnoy. Like Simon Vouet, who returned from Rome in the same period and became an important influence on the next generation of painters, Sarazin established the classicizing ideals of early 17th-century Italian art in France through his many pupils. His quiet manner, combining solid academic forms, lightly idealized, with ample, well-modelled draperies, partly based on the Antique, adapted easily to different circumstances and was equally effective in the architectural sculpture on the Pavillon de l'Horloge of the Palais du Louvre; in the four large stucco angels on the high altar of St Nicolas-des-Champs, Paris (c. 1629; in situ); or in the bronze groups designed by him for the Monument for the Heart of Henri II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1648-63; ex-St Paul-St Louis, Paris; Chantilly, Musee Condé; for illustratiions. . These works are all characterized by a formal beauty, combined with study from the model and a classical restraint, which dominated sculpture in the second half of the 17th century.Contemporary Italian sculpture also influenced work in Paris, largely through the brothers François Anguier and Michel Anguier and their younger contemporary PIERRE PUGET, who went to Italy long after Sarazin had returned and absorbed the later influences of Bernini, Alessandro Algardi and Pietro da Cortona. Puget, probably the most accomplished sculptor of the three, might have filled a role equal to that taken by Charles Le Brun in Court painting, but Jean-Baptiste Colbert's refusal to employ him in the team of sculptors at the château of Versailles limited his immediate influence. His Milo of Crotona Attacked by a Lion (marble, 1670-82; Paris, Louvre), which combined elements of Bernini's work with a debt to the antique Laokoon (Rome, Vatican, Mus. Pio-Clementino), brought him a late celebrity when it was set up in the gardens at Versailles. However, he did not follow this with work of much significance, and his Italianate Baroque style was short-lived.The huge enterprise at Versailles, which became the focus of French sculpture in the second half of the 17th century, was dominated by Sarazin's pupils. The earliest sculptural work was commissioned for the gardens in the early 1660s, changing as the design for the château and the gardens became more ambitious. In the first instance the work was confined to decorative terms and a handful of statues, executed by Louis Lerambert II, the Anguier brothers, Thibault Poissant, Nicolas Legendre, Philippe de Buyster and others. However, when Colbert placed Le Brun in control of the overall planning in 1666, important commissions were awarded to Le Brun's protégés, the sculptors FRANÇOIS GIRARDON, Thomas Regnaudin, Gaspard Marsy, Balthazard Marsy and Jean Tuby.In the same year Colbert sent Charles Errard le fils to Rome as the first director of the new Académie de France. Most of the great names among the sculptors of the succeeding generations (Nicolas Coustou, Robert Le Lorrain, Edme Bouchardon, Lambert-Sigisbert Adam (ii), René-Michel Slodtz and their successors) went to this academy, having won the Prix de Rome in France. This system made an institution from a practice common for nearly a century and ensured the continuing influence of contemporary Italian art and Classical sculpture on the work of French sculptors.Like his many rivals, Girardon had been to Rome in the late 1640s. His debt to the classicizing style of Sarazin is evident in the marble group Apollo Tended by the Nymphs, commissioned from him in 1666 for the Grotto of Thetis at Versailles (moved to the Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon, 1774), which is replete with references to the Antique but is composed more like a painting than a sculpture. Similarly, Girardon's relief of the Bath of Nymphs (lead, formerly gilded, 1668-70; in situ) for the gardens at Versailles is like a translation into sculpture of Domenichino's Diana with Nymphs at Play (1618; Rome, Gal. Borghese). His Rape of Proserpina (marble, 1677-99; Versailles, Château) is derived from Bernini's group of the same subject (1621-2; Rome, Gal. Borghese) but is tamed by a certain restraint that 17th-century French sculptors habitually imposed on the freer inventions of their Italian contemporaries.Girardon remained the most prominent of the sculptors working at Versailles until he was eclipsed by ANTOINE COYZEVOX, whose lighter manner was more in keeping with the direction of Court taste after the fall of Le Brun than the formalized style of Girardon. Coyzevox's style derives from the same sources-Sarazin, Bernini and the Antique-but of these, the Antique was the least sustained. Unusually, he had not been to Italy, and he acquired his knowledge of Bernini at second-hand or through Bernini's portrait bust of Louis XIV (1665; Versailles, Château), which became the pattern for his own many portrait busts. His monuments for the tombs of Cardinal Mazarin (with Jean Tuby and Etienne Le Hongre; 1689-93; Paris, Chapel of the Inst. France; and Jean-Baptiste Colbert (with Tuby; 1685-93; Paris, St Eustache) include bronze figures that derive from Sarazin but have an added liveliness. 4. c 1700-c 1814.Sculpture, more than any other art in 18th-century France, depended on the patronage of the Crown, and with the suspension of the work at Versailles in the last years of the 17th century, the scope for new sculpture was restricted. The laying out of gardens (begun 1679) for the royal residence at the château of MARLY (1679-83; destr. 19th century) provided new opportunities for Antoine Coyzevox and for the younger generation of the Coustou brothers, Nicolas and Guillaume and for RENÉ FRÉMIN and ROBERT LE LORRAIN. These sculptors followed the pattern of François Girardon and his contemporaries, making the obligatory trip to Rome and returning to France more ostensibly influenced by the work of Bernini and 17th-century painters than by the works of the Ancients. The sculptures commissioned for Marly are, in the main, light-hearted, following the example of Coyzevox's Flora, Pan and a Hamadryad (all Paris, Louvre), commissioned in 1708 to form a group with Nicolas Coustou's seated marble figures of Adonis, the Nymph with a Quiver and the Nymph with a Dove (all 1708-10; Paris, Louvre). Nicolas Coustou's Apollo and Guillaume Coustou's Daphne (both 1711-14; Paris, Louvre) were directly inspired by Bernini's Apollo and Daphne (1622-4; Rome, Gal. Borghese). The pair of horse-tamers (marble, 1739-45; both Paris, Louvre; copies Paris, Place de la Concorde, sculpted by Guillaume Coustou towards the end of his life for Marly, seem, self-consciously, to mark his distance from Coyzevox, who had made a pair of horses earlier for the site, which were found to be too small (marble, 1701-2; both Paris, Louvre; copies Paris, Jard. Tuileries). Coyzevox's pair soar upwards, with figures of Fame and Mercury lightly perched on their backs. Coustou's pair are completely different in character, more in the heroic manner of Pierre Puget's work, which was admired in the 18th century and imitated in academic circles but was not, otherwise, taken as a model for public monuments, where charm and elegance were in higher favour. For most of Guillaume Coustou's life, the influence of Coyzevox was dominant. The work of Coyzevox's pupil Jean-Louis Lemoyne was a continuation of his master's style well into the 18th century, adding impressionistic effects that appear to have been inspired by contemporary painting. His Baptism of Christ (1731; Paris, St Roch) is composed like a painting, with a frontal emphasis and unified, pictorial effect. This is also evident in Robert Le Lorrain's relief of the Horses of Apollo on the former stables of the Hôtel de Rohan, Paris (1736-7; in situ), which creates an effect of dramatic turmoil within a shallow space. This tendency was inspired, above all, by the example of Bernini, whose attempt to create a synthesis of painting, architecture and sculpture attracted imitators at the Académie de France in Rome. The work of René-Michel Slodtz and also of Lambert-Sigisbert Adam sometimes depends directly on Bernini. Adam's Neptune Calming the Waves (Paris, Louvre), his morceau de réception for admission to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1737, was deeply marked by the bravura of Bernini's original, which Adam, with his brother Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, turned to again in the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite (lead, completed 1740) for the Bassin de Neptune in the gardens at Versailles.Adam's reputation did not survive the mid-century reaction against this style of sculpture, when the less theatrical manner of Edme Bouchardon became fashionable among connoisseurs. Bouchardon had won the Prix de Rome in 1722 and accompanied his fellow prizewinner, Adam, to Italy in 1723. While Adam competed successfully for public commissions in Rome (he was the original choice as sculptor to execute the Trevi Fountain), Bouchardon made his reputation by making marble portrait busts. The fountain in the Rue de Grenelle, the work that first brought him success in Paris, was commissioned by the city in 1739. Although not universally liked, it decisively marked the beginning of a reaction against Adam's style. The seated figure of the city of Paris at the centre of the group, reminiscent of the antique figure of Rome on the Capitoline Hill (in situ), is dwarfed by the large, severely simple base. The low reliefs of putti, representing the Seasons, on left and right of the main group, recall 17th-century prints by Charles Errard le fils and Jacques Stella, or François Du Quesnoy's famous relief of the Bacchanale of Children (1626; Rome, Gal. Doria-Pamphili) and suggest an inclination towards the art of the grand siècle, which underlies a number of aspects of the mid-century reaction against the Rococo. Much of Bouchardon's later work was not completed, and his reputation rested less on what he achieved and more on what he came to represent in the reaction against the Rococo that gathered strength in the 1750s. The fountain in the Rue de Grenelle closely anticipates the forms of architecture, sculpture and the decorative arts that became fashionable in the middle decades of the century through the efforts of Bouchardon's friends and admirers, the Comte de Caylus, Charles-Nicolas Cochin and the Abbé Jean-Bernard Le Blanc. The naturalism, smooth finish and simple, circular base of Bouchardon's Cupid Cutting a Bow out of Hercules' Club (marble, completed 1750; Paris, Louvre; is an early example of the style of sculpture in high favour at Court in the 1750s, with the emergence of LOUIS-CLAUDE VASSÉ, Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain, Guillaume Coustou, JACQUES-FRANÇOIS-JOSEPH SALY, Etienne-Maurice Falconet, Jean-Jacques Caffiéri, and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle.ETIENNE-MAURICE FALCONET, who characterized this reaction towards nature, simplicity and the Antique more than any other sculptor, was not obviously prepared for this role by his background. Taught by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, the least 'antique' of French sculptors, he never visited Italy and took Puget's Milo of Crotona Attacked by a Lion (1670-82; Paris, Louvre) as his early model. However, he responded to the new 'Greek' taste of the 1750s, publicly despised the work of Bernini (which he could hardly have known) and produced figures of nymphs and bathers, smoothly finished with a sensuous elegance that is the equivalent in sculpture of Joseph-Marie Vien's classicizing naturalism in painting. These figures translated easily into porcelain statuettes that were produced at the Sèvres factory, where Falconet was appointed director of the sculpture studios in 1757. Through Sèvres the new style was popularized and was above all pioneered in interior decoration and the decorative arts, where the extremes of Rococo had always been much more visible than in the world of sculpture, which remained closely linked throughout to academic principles. Jean-Baptiste Pigalle was the frankest naturalist of this generation. The subject of his marble and bronze tomb of Maurice, Maréchal de Saxe (1753-76; Strasbourg, St Thomas), is Baroque in inspiration but transformed in every detail by the study of nature. Pigalle's marble statue of Voltaire, Nude (1770-76; Paris, Louvre) represents the extreme instance of this tendency to rework traditional antique themes from nature.The naturalism of Pigalle and his contemporaries found expression in portraiture, which was practised in the second half of the 18th century with new concentration by artists who produced some of its most memorable works. The series of sculpted portraits of the Great Men of France (the 'Grands Hommes'), inaugurated by the Comte d'ANGIVILLER in 1777, was the equivalent in sculpture of the paintings from national history that he commissioned in the hope that they would encourage virtuous emulation among the citizens of France. The commissions were distributed among the best and most promising sculptors: Clodion, PIERRE JULIEN, Caffiéri, JEAN-BAPTISTE STOUF, Charles-Antoine Bridan LOUIS-PHILIPPE MOUCHY, Jean-Guillaume Moitte, AUGUSTIN PAJOU, Jean-Antoine Houdon and others. Only 27 of the series were completed and they were never installed together as Angiviller had planned. Nevertheless, the enterprise, like a number of Angiviller's initiatives, had far-reaching consequences in the history of public statuary in France and elsewhere.JEAN-ANTOINE HOUDON, whose early career in Rome seemed to promise a career in figurative sculpture, became a specialist in portraiture, sculpting a large number of marble busts and a smaller number of full-length figures-straightforward likenesses-to which he added a vitality and spontaneity that recall the pastels of Maurice-Quentin de La Tour. Apart from his Flayed Man (or Ecorché au bras tendu; plaster version, 1766-7; Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein; later and modified bronze version, Paris, Ecole N. Sup. Beaux-Arts.), which became a staple accessory in art classes throughout Europe, his remaining works, including Winter (c. 1783-5; Montpellier, Mus. Fabre) and his elegant Diana the Huntress (plaster version, 1776; Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein; later marble and bronze versions, Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian; Paris, Louvre; San Marino, CA, Huntington Lib. & A.G;), are exercises in the graceful style of Falconet and his contemporaries, which Pajou and Pierre Julien practised successfully through the reign of Louis XVI into the Revolutionary period.The career of CLODION, Houdon's contemporary at the Académie de France in Rome, was established largely outside the world of official commissions by supplying the collectors' market with terracotta statuettes of nymphs, satyrs and putti derived from the types of Boucher's paintings and Falconet's statues and reduced to a pleasing formula. Before the Revolution, Clodion was involved in two major decorative schemes, supplying statues, along with Houdon and LOUIS-SIMON BOIZOT, for the dining-room of the Château de Maisons and reliefs on the façade of a courtyard in the Hôtel Bourbon-Condé in Paris. The reliefs of putti in the courtyard recall Bouchardon's reliefs in the Rue de Grenelle but, like Bouchardon, Clodion returned to the 17th century for his model, taking his ideas from Poussin and Du Quesnoy. On a superficial assessment, his art seems the type of frivolous decoration that might have been condemned by the taste of the Revolutionary era. Although Clodion survived unscathed, the loss of rich patrons was a severe blow to him, as it was to all artists; he responded by turning more intensively than ever to producing his terracotta statuettes, which were evidently popular throughout the Directory (1795-9) and the Consulate (1799-1804).With the revival of public works in the Consulate and the First Empire (1804-14), Clodion received for the first time an important share in State commissions. The building works of the Empire, in particular, provided work for sculptors on an unprecedented scale: work on the Panthéon, the Palais du Luxembourg, the Louvre, the Vendôme column and numerous lesser monuments and buildings in Paris required the assistance of an army of sculptors. Series of portrait busts for the Senate in the Palais du Luxembourg and for the Palais des Tuileries (destr. 1871), and portraits of the Emperor Napoleon and his courtiers and their families made this a golden age for portrait sculptors. Despite the hostility of Jacques-Louis David, Houdon's portraits also survived the Revolution. On occasion, he showed a willingness to adapt to changing taste: in his terracotta herm bust of Napoleon as Emperor (1806; Dijon, Mus. Beaux -Arts.) he placed the subject on a rectangular base, undraped, like an ancient Roman emperor, in keeping with the fashionable simplicity of early 19th-century sculpture. His talent for such portraits was widely admired, but his Diana of 1776, of which he exhibited a bronze version in 1802, was criticized for lacking the 'ideal and severe character' that was expected from images inspired by myth and ancient history.At the end of the 18th century, the Antique set a standard for judging and executing sculpture to an unprecedented extent. It had always been admired and used as a source of inspiration since the reign of Francis I but did not become an exclusive source of ideas until the late 18th century, when Roman statues, above all, provided artists with a repertory of models. The contribution of Jean-Guillaume Moitte to Angiviller's series of the Great Men, his statue of Jean-Dominique Cassini (Paris, Mus. Observatoire) commissioned in 1787 represents the subject in the guise of an antique philosopher, barefoot and draped in a cloak that covers his knees like a toga. This work anticipated a host of statues, sculpted over the next two decades, which were similarly based on the work of the Ancients, sometimes to the point of pastiche. This tendency was appropriately seen in its purest form among the statues commissioned for the Senate in the Palais du Luxembourg, Paris, which included Cincinnatus (Paris, Palace Luxembourg) by Antoine-Denis Chaudet, Camillus by Pierre-Charles Bridan and Aristides (plaster, exh. Salon 1804; untraced) by PIERRE CARTELLIER, all imitated from the free-standing statuary of ancient Rome. As a consequence, the nature and value of ancient sculpture were never more hotly debated than they were during this period, when the Antique became a measure by which all statuary was judged. The severity and heroism of ancient art was admired and imitated, but its grace and elegance, the qualities in which Clodion excelled, were equally admired, promoting a fashion for a smooth ideal that is as common in the paintings of Anne-Louis Girodet and his followers as it is in the sculpture of the First Empire. It was not the grace of Houdon's Diana that disturbed critics at the Salon of 1802 but the inappropriate realism and modernity of the figure. If Bernini was out of fashion in 1802, so too was the realism that succeeded his influence in French sculpture of the mid-18th century. In Italy Antonio Canova's art followed a similar path, from the early naturalism of Daedalus and Icarus (1778-9; Venice, Correr) to the polished Hellenistic ideal of Cupid Awakening Psyche (1783-93; Paris, Louvre; replica with variations, 1794-6; St Petersburg, Hermitage. In 1802 Canova was invited to Paris by Napoleon to sculpt his portrait, but his influence had preceded him. By this date he was the most famous living sculptor in Europe, and echoes of his work appear in numerous paintings and sculptures in France at the turn of the century. Canova's polished, graceful ideal is also found in Chaudet's Cupid Playing with a Butterfly (completed by Cartellier, exh. Salon 1817; Paris, Louvre), in François-Joseph Bosio's Nymph Salmacis, in Cartellier's Modesty (marble, exh. Salon 1808; Amsterdam, Hist. Mus.), in Psyche and Zephyr (1814; Paris, Louvre) by Henri-Joseph Ruxthiel (1775-1837) and in Joseph Chinard's portrait busts of Juliette Récamier (marble, life-size, 1802; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.;and Fanny Perrin with the Attributes of Psyche (Clermont-Ferrand, Mus. Bargoin). The cult of the Antique brought the question of contemporary costume and the virtue of nudity more sharply into focus than ever before. The sculptors, supported by Canova's friend and admirer Quatremère de Quincy, insisted on the heroic ideal, in opposition to elements at Court who argued the case for modern dress. The Emperor's rejection in 1811 of Canova's monumental nude portrait (1803-6; London, Apsley House; bronze replica, 1809; Milan, Brera; put an effective stop to this tendency, but it did not imply dismissal of all aspects of Canova's art, which was admired, as Girodet's paintings were, for some years after the fall of the Empire. Indeed, such sculptors as Jean-Pierre Cortot and the arch-classicist François-Joseph Bosio continued to practise Canova's ideals during the period of the Bourbon Restoration (1815-30), producing works that adapted the classical ideal of imperial allegory to serve the alliance of Monarchy and Church. Reaction against Canova and the sculptors of his generation finally came during the late 1820s and early 1830s in France. E. c 1814-c 1900.(1) Influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.(2) Public statuary and the influence of government.(3) Romanticism, academicism and 'national' sculpture.(4) Challenges to Beaux-Arts classicism. (1) Influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.For the greater part of the 19th century French sculpture was dominated by the training of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Although histories of painting in the period have largely dismissed the Ecole as retardatory and nugatory, for sculpture-always more dependent on 'official' support-it was crucial. Its hegemony was challenged by the more artisanal courses offered by the Ecole Gratuite de Dessin (or 'Petite Ecole'), especially after 1831 when Jean-Hilaire Belloc (1786-1866) took over the direction of this lesser rival, but up to the 1880s the history of French sculpture is preponderantly the history of the winners of the Prix de Rome: David d'Angers, François Rude, James Pradier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Henri Chapu, Alexandre Falguière, Louis-Ernest Barrias and Antonin Mercié.By mid-century it was increasingly felt that the series of concours (competitions) punctuating the curriculum and culminating in the Prix de Rome were an outdated and inaccurate yardstick for gauging student potential. An attempt to reform the system in 1863 largely misfired, the reformers only partially succeeding in their aim of breaking the hold of the Institut de France over the Ecole, since most of the professors were members of both bodies. They did, however, bring to an end the system of apprenticeship, in which students had learnt their craft in the private studios of their chosen masters, and sculpture studios were established within the Ecole itself. An attempt to modify the concours and the regulations affecting envois (works sent back from Rome by prizewinners) foundered against strong internal opposition. The rigours of the training in Paris, based on study from life and from antique models, were somewhat lessened when the successful student reached Rome; there is conspicuously greater variety in sculptors' Roman envois than in their Prix de Rome entries, the latter executed under duress within the precincts of the Ecole. These envois include some of the most striking works of the 19th century-Pradier's Bacchante (marble, exh. Salon 1819; Rouen, Mus. B.-A.), Guillaume's Anacreon (marble, exh. Salon 1852; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay), Carpeaux's Ugolino and his Children (version, bronze, 1857-63; Paris, Jard. Tuileries), Chapu's Christ with Angels (plaster, 1857; Le Mée-sur-Seine, Mus. Chapu), Mercié's bronze group Gloria victis (plaster version, exh. Salon 1874; Paris, Petit Pal.); although some of them met with doctrinaire strictures from members of the Institut or from the professors on the grounds either that their subjects were neither classical nor biblical or that their style was too personal, such departures were a common occurrence and were in most cases accepted as indications of the qualities expected of laureates. In the Ecole itself the range of source material was widened, particularly from the 1840s, to include a generous selection of casts of Quattrocento, High Renaissance and post-Renaissance works. Casts of Greek works up to the Early Classical period were also acquired. Concessions were thus made to eclecticism but none to the contemporary world. Modern subject-matter was formally proscribed for student envois in 1872, and to this has been ascribed the growing interest among Ecole-trained sculptors in allegory as a vehicle-however indirect-for commentary on modern life and events.Government patronage, whether through a ministry, the Court or municipal or regional bodies, provided the most dependable source of employment for sculptors. The history of sculpture in this period is closely linked with changing political regimes and the projects that they initiated: the instability and transience of these regimes imposed on sculptors the necessity of adapting to new conditions in order to survive, a situation that brought into focus the question of the artist's social and political commitment. In the course of the century two sculptors in particular stood out for their refusal to compromise: David D'Angers, during the July Monarchy (1830-48) and in the early years of the Second Empire (1852-70); and Jules Dalou, after the Commune of 1871. In both cases fidelity to Republican ideals earned them periods of exile. (2) Public statuary and the influence of government.Training in sculpture at the Ecole did not accord in detail with the requirements of public statuary. Intended to inculcate elevated precepts and aesthetic ideals, it provided in only a general sense a suitable rhetorical language for the polemical or propagandist aims of the State, which in practice often called for an ability to convey specific political messages, through portraits, scenes of recent history or allegory. Overt political propaganda is most evident in works produced between 1815 and 1848. The government of the restored Bourbons revived projects initiated under the ancien régime and embarked on a series of monuments expressing national expiation for regicide and the Reign of Terror. Jean-Pierre Cortot and François-Joseph Bosio returned to pre-Revolutionary types of allegory and apotheosis in the sculpture of the Chapelle Expiatoire in Paris (e.g. Cortot's Marie-Antoinette Succoured by Religion, marble, c. 1825) and in the commissions of Charles X's government for statues of Louis XVI (begun 1827; Paris, Place de la Concorde) by Cortot and of Louis XVIII (1826; Paris, Pal. Bourbon) by Bosio.Following the Revolution of 1830 the new government of Louis-Philippe commandeered and adapted to its own ends schemes proposed in the previous decade, notably the decoration of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Madeleine, both in Paris, and the Porte d'Aix in Marseille. The government also returned Ste Geneviève, Paris, to the secular function of the Panthéon, which it had enjoyed between 1791 and 1821, with a new pediment (1830-37) commissioned from David d'Angers; undertook the sculptural embellishment of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile; and instituted a programme of polemical decorations at the Palais Bourbon. Considered overall, this group of schemes was impressively orchestrated; it suppressed all that was anti-Revolutionary in the Restoration projects, acknowledging the existence of Napoleon as Emperor, while extolling the military prowess of Bonaparte as General, promoting a State-sanctioned Catholic morality (hardly recognized as such by Catholic critics), reassimilating Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and a selected group of Revolutionary figures among the great men of the nation, and representing in staid allegories the moderate principles of constitutional monarchy. (3) Romanticism, academicism and 'national' sculpture.The climate of liberalism in the Salons of the early 1830s permitted younger sculptors, some of them affiliated with the Romantic tendency, to come before the public. Prix-de-Rome winner, François Rude, created a precedent for moderate emancipation from classical canons in the treatment of the nude, exhibiting relaxed Neapolitan genre subjects (see fig. 39). Antoine-Louis Barye and Christophe Fratin (1800/02-64) launched what was to become another vogue, Animalier Sculpture. Other forms of local colour-literary, geographical and historical-along with a colouristic handling of bronze emerged in the works of the Romantic sculptors Antonin-Marie Moine, Auguste Préault, Etienne-Hippolyte Maindron, Théodore Gechter, Jean-Bernard Du Seigneur (1808-66) and Jean-Jacques Feuchère. When Salon juries from 1836 began to suppress the more interesting work of this loose-knit school, some of its followers found alternative outlets in the expanding market for statuettes and decorative domestic sculptural ornament. Another alluring feature of the statuette trade was its accommodation of fashion and topicality, in the caricatures of Jean-Pierre Dantan, for example, and in delicate portrayals of stage personalities by Jean-Auguste Barre and others. Neither was the classical repertory neglected in this type of sculpture, the largest contribution coming from James Pradier, whose mythological themes were interspersed with modern erotic genre subjects.Remaining aloof from such commercial endeavours, David d'Angers, Antoine Etex and Rude maintained an individualist concept of a 'national' sculpture that led them finally into opposition with the July Monarchy. David d'Angers increasingly turned his attention to the task of honouring great men in commemorative statues, tombs, busts and portrait medallions. The commissioning of such statues in France dated back to the years just prior to the Revolution. The restored Bourbon monarchy gave the activity a wider, national, base by erecting statues in the subjects' places of birth. David d'Angers's achievement was in bringing his personal initiative to bear in the choice of subject and location, stimulating local interest and sponsorship but sometimes giving his own labours free of charge.The last major monument erected under the July Monarchy, the tomb of Napoleon I in the church of the Invalides, Paris, was characterized by an extreme aesthetic conservatism. The sculptors involved were Pradier (marble Victories, 1843-52), Duret (bronze allegories flanking door to the tomb, c. 1843) and Pierre-Charles Simart (marble allegorical reliefs and marble and bronze portrait statue, 1846-52). Such conservatism, which paradoxically the short-lived Second Republic (1848-52) did nothing to undermine, was inherited by the Second Empire (1852-70). The resurgence of academicism was accompanied by a comparative diffidence on the part of Napoleon III's government about political statements interpreted in monumental form. A lack of ideological content was compensated for by the sheer quantity of State commissions that were dedicated mainly to enlivening the surfaces of focal metropolitan buildings. 335 sculptors were employed between 1852 and 1857 on the restoration and extension of the Musée du Louvre, Paris; 131 sculptors worked from 1860 to 1875 on the Paris Opéra. Images of Napoleon III and of his imperial forebears appeared in the Louvre programme, but particular statements were swamped by an abundance of abstracted personifications and portraits of worthies. At the end of the 1860s the floridity of Charles Garnier's architectural conception of the new Opéra found in Carpeaux's allegorical group representing Dance (stone, 1866-9; in situ; a true sculptural counterpart, at least in the judgement of futurity: the immediate response from both the architect and the public was shock at what they deemed its excess and a demand for its removal.During the July Monarchy the family of Louis-Philippe, notably Ferdinand-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, had played its part, through personal patronage, in promoting the 'minor' Romantic genres in sculpture. Similarly, in the Second Empire certain sculptors received Court approval, which helped them to make their mark in both the private and the public domains. The florid styles of Carpeaux and ALBERT-ERNEST CARRIER-BELLEUSE were as much embedded in the tradition of decorative sculpture as in the traditions of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. It was the support that both these sculptors received from the imperial household that in the later years of the Empire established their styles as a viable alternative to academic orthodoxy. Of the two, only Carpeaux succeeded in forging, from an eclectic grounding, a truly personal style that was excitable and impressionistic and that transcended its sources; Carrier-Belleuse, inventive enough in decorative composition, was usually content with a pastiche of the Renaissance or Rococo periods.In certain cases, sculptors during the Second Empire were compelled to subordinate personal originality to the demands of archaeological reconstruction, since it was in the 1850s that Adolphe-Napoléon Didron and Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc introduced a more historically enlightened note into the restoration of such ancient monuments as Notre-Dame in Paris and the château of Pierrefonds in Oise. The erudite medievalism of Viollet-le-Duc's chief sculptural assistant, Geoffrey Dechaume (1816-92), is but one of the historicisms practised in this eclectic period.In creating Ugolino and his Children, Carpeaux revitalized the sculpted nude, sharing this ambition with a group of young sculptors who took their inspiration from Michelangelo and the 15th century and subsequently became known as 'Les Florentins'. Two members of the group, Alexandre Falguière and Paul Dubois (i), studied in Rome in the early 1860s and were preoccupied with the youthful male figure and with anatomical characterization as opposed to the normative idealization encouraged by the Ecole. After 1870 ANTONIN MERCIÉ and Louis-Ernest Barrias reinforced their early endeavours, and it was their emphasis on modelling and on emotive effects that informed much of the sculpture exhibited in the annual Salons between the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the beginning of the 20th century. Rodin, in his early works, was clearly indebted to them, his Age of Bronze (version, bronze, 1875-7; London, V&A; and St John the Baptist (version, bronze, 1878; Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyp.) both finding their closest counterparts in the pieces exhibited by Mercié in the Salons of the early 1870s.During the Third Republic (1871-1946), up to World War I, there was a tremendous increase in the number of commemorative statues being produced in Paris and the provinces, instigated mainly by the initiatives of regional and municipal governments, as for example the two monuments to the Republic commissioned by the City of Paris from Léopold Morice (1846-1920) (1883; Paris, Place de la République) and Jules Dalou (bronze, 1879-99; Paris, Place de la Nation;. Societies also commissioned works from sculptors, as for example the Société des Gens de Lettres, which commissioned Rodin's monument to the writer Honoré de Balzac (plaster, exh. Salon 1898; rejected by the Société; bronze version erected 1939, Paris, intersection Boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse). In the case of war memorials or monuments of national interest a local contribution or a fund raised from public subscription might be augmented by funds from the central government. From this period the biggest concentration of sculpture within the City of Paris was a municipal project, the Hôtel de Ville, requiring the collaboration of 230 sculptors. The building was embellished with many portraits of famous men and women of Paris, the sculptures combining costume pageantry with a new emphasis on realism.In outdoor commemorative monuments of the last two decades of the 19th century, such as Dalou's monument to Delacroix (bronze, unveiled 1890) in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, or Barrias's monument to Victor Hugo (inaugurated 1902; mostly destr. 1942) in the Place Victor-Hugo, Paris, elaborateness of composition and dramatic silhouette were the dominant trends. The variety of solutions proposed was a consequence of the increase in the numbers of such statues, as well as of the desire to educate through imagery. Here, as in the architecture of the same period, a total accommodation with the vocabulary of the Baroque was made. For David d'Angers, responsible for so many commemorations earlier in the century, the simple ingredients of a full-length portrait statue with subordinated attributes, an inscription and, optionally, reliefs on the pedestal illustrating incidents from the life of the subject, had been sufficient. To this type sculptors of the Third Republic added a wealth of allegory and of symbolic and anecdotal detail, such as had been used on tombs in the 17th and 18th centuries. (4) Challenges to Beaux-Arts classicism.The sculptural mood of the 1870s was elegiac, a response to France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). After the establishment of the Third Republic, public statuary in particular entered an ebullient and ingratiating phase. Rodin's début as an exhibitor at the Salon coincided with the elegiac phase, and against a background of what he saw as the charlatanism and false poetry of most Salon exhibits he pursued his own introverted researches in preparation for the unfinished Gates of Hell (bronze, 1880-1917; Paris, Mus. Rodin;. Some of his projects for commemorative monuments take the allegorizing mode of his contemporaries to its furthest limit; others, like that to Balzac, incorporated symbolism in a single figure. However, he always made the monumental rhetoric his own, endowing it with a personal feeling above all for the language of the body itself, developed through his immense output of drawings and experimental models. At the same time he aknowledged his debt both to Michelangelo and to medieval sculptors, while retaining links with the more immediate traditions of the 19th century. This occurred at a time when, simultaneously with the erection of statues to great writers of the Romantic movement, a reassessment was underway of the achievement of earlier Romantic sculptors, some of whom were still active in Rodin's youth.In the 1880s, within the Ecole, the innate conservatism of the more official sculptors made them ideal bulwarks of the establishment. In 1864 the post of Directeur of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts had been taken up by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste-Claude Eugène Guillaume; in 1878 it had passed to another sculptor, Paul Dubois (i), who retained it until his death in 1905, after which long-overdue reforms were finally introduced. However, in practice, the ascendancy of Rodin, who had been refused admission to the Ecole, and of Dalou, who had been a disappointed runner-up in the Prix de Rome, was an indication of the loosening of the grip of the Ecole on sculpture at large. Furthermore, at the Impressionist exhibition of 1881 EDGAR DEGAS showed his startlingly veristic wax sculpture of the Young Dancer of Fourteen (version, bronze, Rotterdam, Mus. Boymans-van Beuningen), a work closer in many ways to both contemporary and historic Italian sculpture than to anything then being produced in France. It took a critic of the originality of Joris-Karl Huysmans to appreciate the challenge being posed to the system. It was the first occasion in which an innovative painter-sculptor had cared to show his sculpture to the public at large; the vigorous modelling power of Théodore Gericault and Honoré Daumier remained a secret known only to frequenters of studios. After the Young Dancer of Fourteen, Degas, like them, chose not to exhibit his sculpture and turned exclusively to small-scale and experimental work in three dimensions.A problem of the period that was brought into focus by Rodin in his marbles was that of authenticity. The deputing of the final execution of carved works to assistants or professional praticiens had been practised before the 19th century, but as the technical aspects of sculpture became more developed and the entrepreneurial systems facilitating the division of tasks became more sophisticated, a reaction set in, exacerbated by the virtuosic appearance at the Salons of a number of marble showpieces depicting mythological subjects by such sculptors as Denys Puech and Laurent-Honoré Marqueste (1848-1920). The reaction had already been registered by the Ecole, where classes in stone- and marble-carving were instituted in 1883, but it was in the exhibitions of sculpture at the Salons of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts during the 1890s that a more fundamental revision made its appearance, such Symbolist sculptors as Jean Dampt, Jean Carriès, Jules Desbois and Pierre Roche preferring the dual identities of poet and craftsman to the grandiose conception of statuaire and finding alternatives to marble in wood, pewter, ceramic, wax, gypsum, ivory, lead and combinations of these. Such experiments with mixed-media and polychromed sculpture were not practised exclusively by those who favoured an Arts and Crafts approach. Polychromy had been tentatively espoused by Neo-classical sculptors earlier in the century, after the publication in Paris in 1815 of Antoine Quatremère de Quincy's account of the ancient Greeks' use of colour in sculpture, Le Jupiter olympien, and experimentation of this kind had increased around mid-century. Sometimes the motive was archaeological, as with Simart's chryselephantine reconstruction of the Athena Parthenos (1846) for the château of Dampierre, Marne (in situ); sometimes it was to contribute to a work's voluptuous charge, as in Auguste Clésinger's Woman Bitten by a Snake (exh. Salon 1847; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay), in which the white marble of the subject's body was originally set off against a bed of tinted flowers. A more consistent commitment to coloured sculpture, exploiting gorgeous combinations of bronze, marbles and semi-precious stones, had been demonstrated from the mid-1850s by Charles Cordier in his busts of ethnic types, and in the final decade of the 19th century this ostentatious and materialistic polychromy was 2010-11-15 08:45:48 GMT 27 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/26-Salmson,-Jean-Jules Salmson, Jean Jules  Artist name Salmson, Jean Jules Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor; medallist; illustrator Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1823.07.18 Place of birth: Paris Date of death: 1902.05.07 Place of death: Coupvray Place(s) cited: Geneva and ParisBook source 1: Thieme-Becker XXIX, 1935, 353 Born in Paris, he was the son of a medallion engraver and later studied under Dumont, Ramey and Toussaint and exhibited at the Salon from 1859, winning second-class medals in 1863 and 1867 and becoming a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in the latter year. Some of the bronzes he exhibited at the Salon are La Devideuse, a group greatly inspired by antiquity (1863), groups entitled Phryné devant l'aréopage and Laïs et Démosthène (1870), Chute des Titans, a shield, 60 cm diameter (1891): at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 he showed a statuette entitled Femme à la marguerite. He worked on many important Parisian monuments such as the Opera, the Tuileries, and the Tribunal de Commerce as well as for the City Hall of la Rochelle. He was director of the School of Industrial Arts, Geneva, a corresponding member of the Institut de France (1891) and one of the leading exponents of portrait sculpture at the end of the 19th Century. He produced a number of statuettes of famous people including Shakespeare, Hamlet, Byron, Van Dyck, Walter Scott, Rubens, Washington, Charles 1er, Marie Stuart, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others. He did decorative and ornamental sculpture, busts and statuettes of historical and contemporary French and Swiss personalities, allegorical figures, bas-reliefs and medallions. His best-known work is the Caryatids at the Park Vaudeville Theatre. He published a book about his work in 1892. ExhibitionsParis Salon 1863-1900 MuseumsAngersParis, OrsayParis, OperaParis, LuxembourgLa Rochelle (Hotel de Ville)ChamonixGeneva ReferencesKjellberg, Bronzes of the 19th CenturyMacKay, Dictionary of Western Sculptors in BronzeBenezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et GraveursThieme-Becker, Allgemeines Künstler Lexikon LiteratureLami, Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs ect. au 19e s IV (1921) 228 (mit Werkverz und Literature) Bell-Auvray, Dictionnaire Generale etc II 1885.   2010-11-15 08:45:25 GMT 26 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/25-Pradier,-James-[Jean-Jacques] Pradier, James [Jean-Jacques]Pradier, James [Jean-Jacques](b Geneva, 23 May 1790; d Bougival, 4 June 1852). Swiss sculptor, painter and composer. Prompted by his early displays of artistic talent, Pradier's parents placed him in the workshop of a jeweller, where he learnt engraving on metal. He attended drawing classes in Geneva, before leaving for Paris in 1807. By 1811 he was registered at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and subsequently entered its sculpture competitions as a pupil of François-Frédéric, Baron Lemot. A more significant contribution to his artistic formation around this time was the guidance of the painter François Gérard. Pradier won the Prix de Rome in 1813 and was resident at the French Academy in Rome, from 1814 until 1819. On his return to France, he showed at the Salon of 1819 a group Centaur and Bacchante (untraced) and a reclining Bacchante (marble; Rouen, Mus. B.-A.). The latter, borrowing an erotically significant torsion from the Antique Callipygean Venus, opens the series of sensuous Classical female subjects that were to become Pradier's forte. In Psyche (marble, 1824; Paris, Louvre) new ingredients were added to Pradier's references to the Antique. The critic and theorist Toussaint-Bernard Emeric-David detected in it 'a sort of Florentine grace' and a reminiscence of the 16th-century sculptor Jean Goujon. The sophisticated posture and coiffure, and the contrast between flesh and elaborately involved and pleated drapery, are features that recur in most of Pradier's female subjects.The government of the restored Bourbons (1815-30) conferred on Pradier a number of prestigious commissions, notably a marble monument to Jean, Duc de Berry, for the Cathedral of Versailles (1821-3), and a marble relief for the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1828-31), Paris. As early as 1827 he was made a member of the Institut and Professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This recognition did not secure him automatic preference in official commissions. His project for the pediment of the Madeleine (1828-9), for example, was turned down in favour of one by Henri Lemaire. At all stages Pradier was strenuous in his pursuit of state commissions. After 1834 his efforts in this direction were to be powerfully abetted by the journalism of Victor Hugo. Notoriously apolitical, Pradier found no difficulty in adapting himself to whatever regime happened to be in power, an adaptability which, by the 1848 Revolution, began to look cynical.Approval of Pradier's art by the July Monarchy (1830-48) was shown after the Salon of 1831, when Louis-Philippe purchased his Three Graces (marble; Paris, Louvre). This group invited comparison with works on the same theme by Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen and was an unmistakable gesture of loyalty to the tenets of Neo-classicism at the start of the decade that witnessed the emergence of a Romantic style in sculpture. But Pradier, who has been seen as the 'Ingres of sculpture', was no doctrinaire. An area in which he showed particular sympathy with the aspirations of his more overtly Romantic contemporaries was the production of models for statuettes and for figures adaptable for ornamental use. The firms chiefly involved in diffusing his output in this line were the maison d'éditions Susse Frères and the founder Salvator Marchi. In his group Satyr and Bacchante (marble; Paris, Louvre), shown at the Salon of 1834, Pradier revived in monumental form the explicitly sexual subject-matter of the 18th century. Such erotic motifs frequently occur among Pradier's statuettes. Sometimes their subjects are mythological, as in the undulating Leda and the Swan (plaster; Geneva, Mus. A. & Hist.). In other works Pradier introduced a more novel type of voyeuristic genre, as in Woman with a Cat (plaster, c. 1840; Geneva, Mus. A. & Hist.) or Woman Putting on a Stocking (bronze, 1840; Paris, Mus. A. Déc.). The series of Pradier's life-size female statues culminates in the Nyssia (marble, 1848; Montpellier, Mus. Fabre) and in the seated Sappho (marble; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay; see fig.) exhibited at the Salon of 1852, the first illustrating a modern text, Théophile Gautier's Roi Candaule, the second bringing a note of 'modern' melancholy to the treatment of a subject already popularized by Pradier's Neo-classical forebears, the painters Antoine-Jean Gros and Anne-Louis Girodet.Pradier played a major role in many of the ambitious decorative schemes of the July Monarchy, in particular at the Madeleine and the Palais Bourbon. For the tomb of Napoleon I at the Invalides he contributed the 12 severe Victories surrounding the sarcophagus (1843-52). For Louis-Philippe's historical galleries at Versailles he executed a number of statues and busts. However, his initially cordial relations with the Orléans family were soured by accusations of commercialism aimed at him by the painter Ary Scheffer. They may also have been adversely affected by Pradier's reputation as a philanderer, a myth that his correspondence, published in 1984, goes far to dispel. However, in the annals of Romanticism, Pradier the dandy and party-giver has tended to eclipse Pradier the artist.Despite aspersions cast by critics on the correctness of Pradier's treatment of myth, he remained the leading classical sculptor of his day and exerted a strong influence in the 1840s and 1850s, when a reaction to the turbulent styles of Romanticism prevailed. The combination of the archaeological and the hedonistic characterizing the classical sculpture of the Second Empire (1851-1870) took its main direction from him.Throughout his life, Pradier remained in close contact with his birthplace. In 1830 he obtained a commission from the town for a bronze statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Geneva, Ile Rousseau), a task previously offered to Canova. Pradier's monument was unveiled in 1835. The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire houses an extensive collection of works by Pradier, most of which were acquired after his death. These include oil sketches that indicate an ambition to paint grand mythological subjects, but, of the paintings that Pradier showed at the Salon, only a fragment of a Descent from the Cross (exh. 1838; Geneva, Mus. A. & Hist.) survives. A more intimate and colouristic aspect of Pradier's painting may be glimpsed in the Virgin and Child (1836; Besançon, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.), supposed to be a portrait of his wife and baby son.WRITINGSD. Siler, ed.: James Pradier: Correspondance, 2 vols (Geneva, 1984) BIBLIOGRAPHYLami A. Etex: James Pradier: Etude sur sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1859) Romantics to Rodin (exh. cat., ed. P. Fusco and H. Janson; Los Angeles, Co. Mus. A., 1980) Statues de chair: Sculptures de James Pradier (exh. cat., ed. J. de Caso; Geneva, Mus. A. & Hist.; Paris, Luxembourg Pal.; 1985-6) La Sculpture française au XIXe siècle (exh. cat., ed. A. Pingeot; Paris, Grand Pal., 1986) 2010-11-15 08:45:08 GMT 25 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/24-Emile-Louis-Picault Emile Louis PicaultArtist name Picault, Emile Louis Sex: m Artist occupation: SculptorGeographical data: France State: FranceDate of Birth: 1833 First cited: 1863Date of Death 1913 Place(s) cited: Paris Biographical Emile Louis Picault 1840 -1909 Picault studied under Royer and exhibited medallions and statuettes at the Paris Salon from 1863 to 1909. The work of this sculptor included allegories, warriors, figure exalting patriotic virtue (often accompanied by Latin or French mottoes), heroes, and some historic or mythological person- ages. He sent to the Salon some bronzes, including Le Supplice de Tantale (1867), Persée délivrant Andromcède, 90 cm (1880), Le Génie du programs and Nicolas Flamel (1885), Le Cid (1886), La Naissance de Pégase, and two medallions, Joseph expliquant les songes du pharaon and L'Agriculture (1888). Picault also sent to the Salon the bronzes Le Bour- geois gentilhomme (1890), Le Génte des Sciences (1894). Le Génie des arts (1895), Le Livre (1896), Le Drapeau 'ad unum' (1898), Vox progressi (1903) and Bellérophon (1906). Also of note are some statuettes in plaster: Jason (1879), Andromède (1892). Prométhée dérobant le feu du ciel (1894), La Vaillance (1896), Vertus civiques (1897), Le Mineral (1902), La Forge (1905). Science et Industire (1909), and Propter glortam (1914). In his work Bronzes, Sculptors and Founders, Harold Bermann notes a large number of works cast, sometimes in many dimensions, by different foundries including Colin and Houdebine. Susse cast Le Génie du travail (inscription: 'On the field of the labor the victory is fecund') in three dimensions: 125, 80 and 53 cm Other known examples are:Le Devoir, 56 cm.Dom César de Basan, 59 cm.Le Drapeau -ad unum 82 cm.Eugénie, 69 cm,Excelsior (Houdebine) 90 cm.Ganymède, 87 cm.Galilée, 63 cm.Le Génie de L'étude, 86 cm.Le Génie de la lumière, 93 cm.L'Inspiration, 128 cm.Janissaire, 26.5 cm.Musicien du XV siècle, 26.5 cm.Pax et Labor, 80 and 56.5 cm.La Pensée, 93 and 68 cm.Le Penseur, 45 cm.Post Pugnam, 32 cm (in metal) and 80 cm (in bronze).Prêtre égyptien.Prêtresse, égyptienne, 72 cm.Le Progrès, 78 cm.Pro Jure, 34 cm. MuseumsChamberyClermont-FerrandMaubeuge ReferencesBenezit, E. Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Gründ, 1999.Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon Der Bildenden Künstler Von Der Antike, 1999Kjellberg, P. Bronzes of the 19th Century, A Dictionary of Sculptors, 1992MacKay, J. A dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze, 1976Berman, H. Bronzes- Sculptors and Founders, 1987Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; La Sculpture Française au XIXe Siecle, 1986.Forrest, M., Art Bronzes, 1988 CitationsBellier-Auvray, Dictionnaire Vol. 2 1885Forrer, Bio. Dicti. Med. Vol. 4 1909 2010-11-15 08:44:47 GMT 24 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/23-Moreau,-Mathurin Moreau, MathurinArtist name Moreau, Mathurin Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1822.11.18 Place of birth: Dijon Date of death: 1912.02.14 Place of death: Paris Place(s) cited: Paris Book sources: Thieme-Becker XXV, 1931, 129 French sculptor and entrepreneur. His father, Jean-Baptiste Moreau (1797--1855), a sculptor in Dijon, was best known for his restoration of the medieval tombs of the Dukes of Burgundy, which had been damaged during the French Revolution. In 1841 Mathurin entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, where he trained under Etienne-Jules Ramey and Augustin-Alexandre Dumont. He made his Salon debut in 1848 with Elegy (plaster, Dijon, Musee des Beaux-Arts). In 1852 his Flower Fairy, exhibited at the Salon in plaster, was commissioned by the State in bronze (Dijon, Musee des Beaux-Arts). At the 1861 Salon, his marble Spinner was also bought by the State, for the Musee du Luxembourg, Paris (version, Dijon. Mus. Beaux-Arts). Poetic and uncontentious works of this kind continued to earn Moreau medals and prizes at subsequent Salons and international exhibitions. Among his public works, he contributed decorative sculpture to the new Opera and to the rebuilt Hotel de Ville in Paris, and also produced some commemorative statues, such as that in Dijon to Sadi Carnot, President of the French Republic (marble and bronze, 1899; Dijon, Place de la Republique), which he executed in collaboration with Paul Gasq (b 1860; fl 1881--1909). However, it was probably the extent of his entrepreneurial activities that won for Moreau an influential position in public life. Having provided many sculpture models for commercial exploitation by the Val d'Osne foundry, he became one of the administrators of the Societe du Val d'Osne. Together with his pupil and namesake, Auguste Moreau (1834--1917), he continued, well into the 20th century, to supply models for the manufacture of decorative bronze statuettes that were wholly untouched by more avant-garde endeavours. From 1878 Moreau was mayor of the 19th arrondissement in Paris. The Civil Marriage, a painting by Henri Gervex that hangs in the Salle des Mariages of the Mairie of that arrondissement, shows Moreau officiating at his son's civil marriage ceremony, before a distinguished audience.BIBLIOGRAPHYLami , J.-C. Ancet: Une famille de sculpteurs bourguignons: Les Moreau (diss., U. Dijon, 1974) Kjellberg, P. Bronzes of the 19th Century, A Dictionary of Sculptors, 1992MacKay, J. A dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze, 1976Berman, H. Bronzes- Sculptors and Founders, 1987Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; La Sculpture Française au XIXe Siecle, 1986.Forrest, M., Art Bronzes, 1988   2010-11-15 08:44:28 GMT 23 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/22-Moreau,-Hippolyte-Francois Moreau, Hippolyte FrancoisArtist name Moreau, Hippolyte Francois Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France State: France Place of birth: DijonDate of birth 1832 Place of death: Neuilly-sur-SeineLast cited: 1927Place(s) cited: Paris The second son of Jean-Baptiste Moreau, Hippolyte Moreau went to work in Paris under the direction of Jouffroy and exhibited his first work at the Salon in 1859. The best of his work includes charming full figures of children and young women, mostly allegorical, often with the same subjects as used by Hippolyte's brother Auguste. A few of the bronzes among his consignments at the Salon are Uno bevitore, a statue of 199 cm high (1880), Sortie de l'école, a group (1886), and Mireille, a statuette (1894). There were also a number of marbles, especially some statuettes: L'Iris (1886), Le Rêve (1887), Avril (1888), Dans les bles, Le Chant de I'alouette (1889), Départ des hirondelles (1891), Hésitation (1892), Chrysanthéme (1893), Les Cerises (1894), Le Ruisseau, Le Crépuscule (1895), La Vague (1896), Oiseau blessé (1899), Dans la vague (1900), Fleur de lotus (1902), Le Printemps, Le Chant de la Mer (1903), L'Aurore (1905), Faneuse (1906), and Le Nid (1914). Later, notable works include a series of groups in marble: Première Caresse (1905), Traîtrise d'amour (1907), Innocence and Imprudence (1908), Leçon de chant, Tendre Aveu (1909), Premier Bijou, Bataille de fleurs (1910), Le Secret, Couronnement de l'Amour (1911), Age Heureux and Convoitise (1912), and Un Maraudeur (1913). Among Hippolyte Moreau's works cast in bronze are: L'Aurore, 35 cm, Le Chant de l'alouette, 45cm, Le Chant de la mer, 45 cm, Consolation, 30 cm, L'Echo, 45 cm, L'Eté et l'Hiver, 48 cm, Femme aux sequine, 80 cm, Fillette au crabe, 31 cm, Passage du qué, 58 cm, Le Printemps, 92 cm, Le Rêve, 78 cm, and Le Secret, 55 cm. Finally, in a departure from his usual style, Hippolyte Moreau made the bronze Piqueur au relais, a figure frequently available in public sale. Cast by the Société des Bronzes de Paris, this group also carries the signature of the animal sculptor Prosper Lecourtier, who probably sculpted the dogs. MUSEUMS Chambéry Le Semeur, 35 cm.DijonThis museum possesses a number of plasters and terra cottas as well as some bronzes, including Un buveur and Le Printemps.   2010-11-15 08:44:07 GMT 22 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/21-Mercié,-Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié, Marius Jean AntoninMarius Jean Antonin Mercié Marius Jean Antonin Mercié was born in Toulouse on October 30th 1845. He studied under Jouffroy and Falguière at the École des Beaux-Arts and won the Grand Prize of Rome at the age of 23. This entitled him to study in Italy and during his stay from 1869 to 1873 he produced his most important sculpture David Vainqueur. He sent this figure to the Paris Salon in 1872 where it immediately won a first class medal. In addition he was given the distinction of being the first artist to receive the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur whilst still in Rome, making him unique in the annals of the villa Medicis. Early success in his career brought a number of private and public commissions and he produced a large amount of monuments and ornamental sculptures from his studios. He also regularly exhibited at the Salon until 1912 in both bronze and marble. In 1880 Antonin Mercié began to practice painting as well, but it was his work as a sculptor that continued to collect the most distinctions and honours. He joined the institut in 1891 and was named president of the Societé des Artistes Français in 1913 and became one of the few sculptors to attain the rank of Grand Officer in the Legion d'Honneur. In his works can be seen a certain sensitivity to lifelike qualities of movement, a veritable exuberance common to the group of artists from the Southwest sometimes called the School of Toulouse (Ècole de Toulouse).    2010-11-15 08:43:44 GMT 21 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/20-Mène,-Pierre-Jules Mène, Pierre-JulesMène, Pierre-Jules(b Paris, 25 March 1810; d Paris, 21 May 1879). French sculptor. Having learnt to cast and chase bronze from his father, who was a metal-turner, he began his career by executing models for porcelain manufacturers and making small-scale sculptures for the commercial market. He received his first professional lessons from the sculptor René Compaire and augmented these with anatomical studies and life drawings of animals in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. From 1838 he regularly exhibited animal sculptures at the Salon. His statuettes and groups, such as Flemish Cow and her Calf (wax, 1845; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay), depicted the animal world with great physical precision. He even made sculptures of horses, such as Ibrahim, an Arab Horse Brought from Egypt (exh. Salon 1843), Djinn, Barb Stallion (exh. Salon 1849) and the Winner of the Derby (exh. Salon 1863). Mène was distinguished from other animal sculptors by his well-developed sense of business. He established his own foundry, where he formed a partnership with his son-in-law Auguste-Nicolas Cain, also an animal sculptor; they published a catalogue of their works, which could be ordered directly from the studio. The wide dissemination of reproductions of Mène's works ensured his popularity in France and abroad, especially in England.BIBLIOGRAPHYLami J. Cooper: Nineteenth-century Romantic Bronzes: French, English and American Bronzes, 1830-1915 (London, 1975)    2010-11-15 08:28:30 GMT 20 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/19-Eugène-Louis-Lequesne Eugène Louis LequesneArtist name: Lequesne, Eugène Louis Other name: Le Quesne, Eugène Louis Wr.-attrib. name: Lequesne, Eugène Francois Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1815.02.15 Place of birth: Paris Date of death: 1887.06.03 Place of death: Paris Place(s) cited: Paris It was only after obtaining a law degree that Lequesne entered Pradier's studio in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1841. The following year he went to Italy, and from there he sent his first works to the Salon. He won the grand prize for sculpture in 1844, and returned to Rome for five years. He also won a first class medal in 1851. Following his 1855 exhibition he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour It is not surprising that one of his primary inspirations was antiquity. He executed a number of busts, as well as, many decorative sculptures for Parisian monuments including the Louvre (the front of the Mollien pavilion), the Opera, the Gare du Nord, and the Palais de Justice (statues of the Force, Justice, Innocence, and Crime on the north side of the façade). He also produced statues of famous people for different cities of France, and a work in copper of the Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde for the Marseille basilica (1870). At the Luxembourg gardens is found his Faune dansant, a bronze of 2 meters high cast by Eck and Durand and exhibited at the Salon in 1857, and a statuette entitled Lesbie in 1868 (both in bronze). Also among the works sent to the Salon are a plaster entitled Pretresse de Bacchus in 1887, and a bronze casting of the Faune dansant. His allegories include Industry and Sculpture (both in Amiens Museum) and Vercingetroix conquering the Romans (Chartres).   MuseumsLouvre Amiens Bordeaux Lille Roanne Versailles Chartres References Benezit, E. Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Gründ, 1999.Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon Der Bildenden Künstler Von Der Antike Bis Zur Gegenwart,1999Kjellberg, P. Bronzes of the 19th Century, A Dictionary of Sculptors, 1992MacKay, J. A dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze, 1976Berman, H. Bronzes- Sculptors and Founders, 1987Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; La Sculpture Francaise au XIXe Siecle, 1986.Forrest, M., Art Bronzes, 1988 2010-11-15 08:28:08 GMT 19 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/18-Le-Duc,-Arthur-Jacques Le Duc, Arthur JacquesArtist name Le Duc, Arthur Jacques Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Other occupation: Advocate Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1848.03.27 Place of birth: Torigny-sur-Vire Date of death: 1918.02.20 Place of death: Antibes Place(s) cited: St-Lô; Caen; Vannes; Formigny; Marlotte; Bayeux He studied under Lenordez, Guillard, Dumont, Barye and Carolus Duran and exhibited at the Salon from 1878 onwards. He won third class medal in 1879 and got a silver medals at the Expositions of 1889 and 1900. He became a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1906 and an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in 1893. He specialized in animal and genre groups, such as Familial Piety, Standing Stag, Mare and Foal. Lenordez and Barye trained this skillful animal sculptor at the école. Between 1873 and1914 he exhibited a rather large number of bronzes at the Salon: Diane de Poitiers partant pour la chasse (1877). Centaure et bacchante (1879), and Le Baiser an equestrian group, 65 cm; Harde de cerfs écoutant le rapproché. A monumental group placed today in the Luxembourg gardens (1886), Au bois, an equestrian study (1887), Laitière normande (1888), and Ultimus pro patria spiritus part of the monument to the dead from Calvados (1889), Le Baron J. Finot (1912), and Un compagnon de Duguesclin, an equestrian statue (1914). It is also necessary to note some figures and studies in plaster, such as Porte-Etendard à cheval, a project for a monument to the armies of Reishoffen (1873), La Raison du plus fort, a group of horses (1874). Two groups representing hunting scenes (1875), and Horace Vernet sur la champ de bataille d'Isly, an equestrian statue (1913). Leduc also participated, from 1890 to 1907, at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts with some animals and equestrian portraits. Some are in plaster and others, quite numerous, in ceramic sandstone. He also made an equestrian statue of the Connétable de Richmond in bronze, destined for the city of Vannes. The Thiébaut foundry cast the following works in bronze: Cheval de trait, 41 cm.Chien poitevin, 33 cm.Chien vendéen, 27 cm.Croix de veneur, 42 cm.Harde de cerfs, 79 and 36 cm.Plateau orné d'une course de chevaux, 38 x 27 cm. Saint-Hubert; bas-relief. 139 x 86 and 80 x 50 cm.Le Porte-Etendard de Reichshoffen was also cast in bronze, 60 cm. MUSEUMS AbbevilleChien en arrêt devant une grenouille, 24 x 46 cm. CaenCentaure et bacchante, life size. CherbourgSaint-Hubert. SensDeux Chiens à l'attache, 37 x 43 cm. 2010-11-15 08:27:34 GMT 18 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/17-Houdon,-Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean AntoineArtist name Houdon, Jean Antoine Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1741.03.20 Place of birth: Versailles Date of death: 1828.07.15 Place of death: Paris Place(s) cited: Rome; Paris French Sculptor. He was the foremost French sculptor of the second half of the 18th century and one of the outstanding portrait sculptors in the history of art. Although he created a number of works on Classical themes, he is best known for his remarkably vivid busts and statues of his famous contemporaries, many of which exist in several versions.1. Paris and Rome, to 1768.2. Paris and Gotha, 1768-79.3. From the Salon of 1779 to the French Revolution.4. After 1789.Houdon's father was concierge to the Comte de Lamotte, whose Paris hôtel housed the Ecole Royale des Elèves Protégés. This newly established institution trained the winners of the Grand Prix of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture before they were sent to the Académie de France in Rome. It was his proximity to some of the best artists in France that encouraged Houdon's vocation. He trained in the studios of René-Michel Slodtz, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (ii) and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, and won the Académie's third prize for sculpture in 1756 and the Grand Prix (Prix de Rome) in 1761. He subsequently spent three years at the Ecole des Elèves Protégés before leaving for Rome in 1764.Surviving works from Houdon's years in Rome attest to the variety of his interests. Like all students at the Académie de France he was obliged to make copies of antique sculptures. His plaster bust of a Vestal (Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein) is a severe composition with the head covered with a veil. He made a marble version of this work in 1788 (Paris, Louvre) and continued to be inspired by its source, the statue of a Vestal (or Pandora) in the Museo Capitolino in Rome, in a number of reductions produced throughout his career (e.g. bronze version, exh. Salon 1777; untraced). His bust of a Peasant Girl of Frascati (plaster version, Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein; later marble versions, Paris, Mus. Cognacq-Jay and St Petersburg, Hermitage) is a finely idealized head after the Antique. The plaster statuette of a Priest of the Lupercalia (Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein) is reminiscent of Bernini's statue of Apollo in the group Apollo and Daphne (Rome, Gal. Borghese). A commission for a statue of St John the Baptist for S Maria degli Angeli (plaster; Rome, Gal. Borghese) was the occasion for the production of Houdon's famous statue of a Flayed Man or Ecorché au bras tendu (plaster version, Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein; later and modified bronze version, Paris, Ecole N. Sup. Beaux Arts.). It bears witness to Houdon's other great source of inspiration-study from nature. A statue of St Bruno, also for S Maria degli Angeli (marble; in situ), was clearly a response to René-Michel Slodtz's St Bruno (1744) in St Peter's. Where Slodtz's statue is dynamic, almost agitated, in character, Houdon's is sober, an image of contemplation and introspection, in which the asceticism of the face is emphasized by the striking vertical pleats of the saint's habitParis and Gotha, 1768-79.Houdon returned to Paris in 1768 and was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale on presentation of a recumbent statue of Morpheus, god of dreams. He exhibited a monumental plaster version of this ambitious work at the 1771 Salon (Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein) and was received (reçu) as a full member of the Académie in 1777 on presentation of a smaller marble version (Paris, Louvre). The 1771 Salon was also the first occasion when Houdon showed portraits of identified sitters, among them a terracotta bust of Denis Diderot. The writer is depicted lightly idealized in the antique manner, with short hair and no draperies, his lips slightly parted. In this bust Houdon experimented with a new manner of treating the eyes, perhaps inspired by Bernini, to which he remained faithful for the rest of his career: a small isthmus of marble left within the excavated socket to catch the light represents the sparkle of the pupil.In 1771 and again in 1773 Houdon travelled to Gotha in Saxony, where the Francophile Herzog and Herzogin were among the first collectors of his sculpture. In 1773 he showed at the Paris Salon profile medallion portraits all'antica of Ernest Ludwig II, Herzog von Saxe-Gotha and of Maria Charlotte, Herzogin von Saxe-Gotha (bronzed plaster; Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein). At the same Salon he also exhibited a characterful bust, made after drawings, of another important collector of his works, Catherine the Great (marble version, St Petersburg, Hermitage; plaster version, Schwerin, Staatl. Mus.). Russian patronage was to be important to Houdon. In particular he received commissions for four funerary monuments for members of his family from Prince Dmitry Alekseyevitch Galitzin, Russian Ambassador to France. Two of these were executed in marble (St Petersburg, Mus. Sculp., and Moscow, Don Monastery Cemetery) and were shown at the 1773 Salon. A third exists only as a terracotta model (exh. Salon 1777; Paris, Louvre). The two marbles are in the form of Neo-classical stelae with mourning figures in relief and anticipate the design of Houdon's monument for the Heart of Victor Charpentier, Comte d'Ennery. The terracotta represents a programmatic composition of the kind advocated by Diderot, and maybe conceived as a small cenotaph, made for personal reflection-such as a Vanity-rather than a model for a large monument, never, in fact, executed.The great series of Houdon's portrait busts began in earnest with his exhibits at the Salons of 1775 and 1777, when he showed works that are among his most successful, both from the point of view of psychological penetration and in the exceptional mastery of his handling. They included busts of the Garde des Sceaux, the Marquis de Miromesnil (marble versions, London, V&A, and New York, Frick), of the Contrôleur Général des Finances, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (marble; Lantheuil, Calvados, Château), of the composer Willibald von Gluck (plaster; Weimar, Thüring. Landesbib.) and the singer Sophie Arnould (marble; Paris, Louvre), as well as Houdon's four marble masterpieces, the busts of the Comtesse de Cayla (New York, Frick), the Baronne de la Houze (San Marino, CA, Huntington A.G.) and Louis XVI's aunts Mme Victoire (London, Wallace) and Mme Adélaïde (Paris, Louvre). Also noteworthy were the terracotta busts of the children of the architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart (Paris, Louvre). Houdon later made portraits of his own children at different ages, such as those of Sabine Houdon (plaster; Paris, Louvre).If the Salons of 1775 and 1777 established Houdon as a portrait sculptor without rivals, he nevertheless continued to work also on a monumental scale. In 1776 he executed for the Herzog von Saxe-Gotha a large plaster statue of Diana the Huntress (Gotha, Schloss Friedenstein). In this, the goddess is depicted as if running forward, her bow in her hand. It is a reinterpretation of the art of antiquity in which Houdon, while choosing to depict the figure completely nude, also chose to show its anatomical details without idealization. Diana is given apparent movement by a slight twist to the torso, which gives the figure both its dynamism and its sensuality. The statue exists in a number of other large-scale versions: a marble of 1780 (Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian), a terracotta of c. 1781 (New York, Frick) and two bronzes cast by Houdon himself, one of 1782 (San Marino, CA, Huntington A.G.) and the other of 1790. From the Salon of 1779 to the French Revolution.At the Salon of 1779 Houdon inaugurated his impressive gallery of portraits of famous men, modelled both from life and posthumously. This was a theme that he continued up to his last Salon in 1814, and places him firmly within the historicist current of the age of Louis XVI. Houdon's originality (he was always keen to exploit the commercial possibilities of his works) lay in creating different bust types of his illustrious subjects. Thus Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Franklin, Washington and others were depicted in contemporary costume and hairstyles, but also with their hair dressed in the Roman manner and their shoulders naked or covered with antique drapery.Also in 1779 Houdon received his only official commission from the Bâtiments du Roi, a statue in period costume of the 17th-century soldier the Maréchal de Tourville (marble; Versailles, Château). This was intended as part of the series of statues of Illustrious Frenchmen designed to decorate the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, Paris. The statue of Tourville was exhibited at the 1781 Salon together with one of Houdon's greatest masterpieces, his statue of Voltaire Seated. The latter was a private commission from the writer's niece Mme Denis. It exists in a number of versions, including the original plaster containing Voltaire's heart (Paris, Bib. N.), two marbles, shown at the Salon (Paris, Mus. Comédie Fr.), and a variant made for Catherine the Great (St Petersburg, Hermitage). The pose of the Voltaire statue, which shows him seated in a Louis XVI-style armchair, is related to the concept of the Illustrious Frenchmen. But the imprecise nature of the costume, a sort of dressing-gown that implies Classical drapery, and the head shown wigless but decorated with a philosopher's headband, suggest a heroization responding, but with a greater care for 'decency', to Pigalle's infamous statue of Voltaire Nude (1776; Paris, Louvre).Such was Houdon's celebrity by this time that Thomas Jefferson, Ambassador of the United States to France, suggested to him a scheme for a monumental statue of George Washington for the Capitol at Richmond, VA. Hoping to execute a bronze equestrian statue, the apogee of the sculptor's art, Houdon went to the USA in 1785. There he executed a bust portrait of Washington taken from life but lightly idealized all'antica (terracotta; Mount Vernon, VA). Unfortunately, Washington refused to be represented in the heroic antique mode and Houdon had to content himself with making a marble standing statue showing him in contemporary costume (Richmond, VA, Capitol), which he signed in 1788. The only Classical reference is the plough behind the figure of Washington, an allusion to the retirement of Cincinnatus.After 1789.Houdon, who by the late 1780s had portrayed the king, the royal family and the high aristocracy as well as the men of the Enlightenment, continued his activity unabated during the early years of the Revolution. He executed busts of such political figures as Lafayette, Necker, Barnave, Bailly, Mirabeau and Dumouriez, which exist in a number of versions. Nevertheless, later he was in less demand. It is significant that he was not involved in the new sculptural decorations of the Panthéon, Paris, and he failed in his ambition to execute a monument in honour of Rousseau. He did execute a number of important works under the Empire, including a herm bust of Napoleon as Emperor (terracotta, 1806; Dijon, Mus. B.-A.), a statue of Cicero (plaster, 1804; Paris, Bib. N.) for the chamber of the Senate, and monumental marble statues of Général Joubert (c. 1812; Versailles, Château) and Voltaire (c. 1812; Paris, Panthéon), the latter this time depicted standing.Houdon was an artist of remarkable range and calibre who dominated with ease the sculptors of his generation. His output covers all the genres, except perhaps that of the terracotta model for the consumption of private collectors. Even this taste was catered for late in his career with the half-nude female statuettes he made on the theme of Winter ('La Frileuse', Paris, Louvre). He executed portraits from life and posthumously, sometimes, as in the case of his busts of Rousseau and Mirabeau, using death masks. He produced outdoor statuary, such as his fountain for the Duc d'Orléans's park at the Plaine Monceau. This consisted of a marble figure of a Bather (New York, Met.) on to whose shoulders water was poured by a lead Negress (destr. 1790s). There was also sculpture for interior settings, including marble female statues representing Winter and Summer (c. 1783-5; Montpellier, Mus. Fabre) made for the rich collector Girardot de Marigny, as well as decorative low reliefs, such as the one made for Ste Geneviève, Paris (untraced). He was a superb handler of marble-perhaps only Augustin Pajou's works show a comparable finesse of touch-commercially shrewd in the production of plaster versions of his works (and equally so in the diffusion throughout Europe of copies of his portraits of the Parisian élite), and also an expert bronze-founder in the best French tradition. Although he failed in his ambition to execute an equestrian statue, he did produce bronze versions of a number of his statues, including Winter ('L'Hiver', 1787; New York, Met.), Diana the Huntress and its pendant of Apollo (1790; Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian) and the Ecorché, as well as superb bronzes of his busts, such as that of Rousseau (1778; Paris, Louvre). It was of this last activity that he was most proud. In a memoir written in 1794 Houdon summed up his career thus: 'I have given myself over to only two studies, which have filled my whole life … anatomy and the casting of statues'.BIBLIOGRAPHYLami G. Giacometti: La Vie et l'oeuvre de Houdon, 2 vols (Paris, 1928) W. Sauerländer: Jean-Antoine Houdon: Voltaire (Stuttgart, 1963) L. Réau: Houdon, 2 vols (Paris, 1964) H. H. Arnason: The Sculptures of Houdon (London, 1975) [with extensive bibliog.] 2010-11-15 08:25:38 GMT 17 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/16-Emmanuel-Hannaux Emmanuel HannauxArtist name Hannaux, Emmanuel Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1855.01.31 Place of birth: Metz (Moselle)Date of death: 1934 Place(s) cited: Paris Book location: Thieme-Becker XV, 1922, 591 Biographical He studied in Paris under Dumont, Thomas, and Bonnassieux. He was runner-up in the Prix de Rome of 1880 with a statue depicting L'enfant prodigue and made his debut at the Salon in 1878 with Phryné Mercury and Bacchus and became an associate of the Artistes des Française in 1884. He won a third class medal (1884), second-class medal (1889) and first class medal (1894) with Orpheus, purchased by the Luxembourg Museum now in the museum of Nancy; with major awards at he Universelle Exposition of 1900 in Paris. In 1886 he produced a portrait bust of Dr. Lailler for the Hospital Saint-Louis. In Metz, there is marble crucifix in the Cathedral. He was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor that year and won the Medal of Honor at the Salon of 1903 with his famous sculpture Le Poëte et la Sirée, later cast in many bronzes by Susse Freres. In 1904 he sculpted Le Drapeau in gypsum that is now in the Draguignan Museum. He specialized in busts, classical figures and allegorical groups such as Dying Orpheus, The Poet and the Siren and Flowers of Sleep. Museums:Draguignan, Wallace Collection, Metz, Nancy, Paris-Museum of Modern Art, Medicine College of Paris Le-Puy-En-Velay, Luxembourg References: Bénézit, E. Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Gründ, 1999.Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon Der Bildenden Künstler Von Der Antike Bis Zur Gegenwart, 1999Kjellberg, P. Bronzes of the 19th Century, A Dictionary of Sculptors, 1992MacKay, J. A dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze, 1976Berman, H. Bronzes- Sculptors and Founders, 1987Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; La Sculpture Française au XIXe Siecle, 1986.Forrest, M., Art Bronzes, 1988   Citations:Nouv. archiv. de I'art franc,., 2e série T. 11 (1800/81) 481; 3rd série T. XIII (1897) 153. - Bellier - Auvray , Dict. génér., 1 (1882). - L'art LVII (1894) 315ff.; LXII 326; LXIV lV 146; LXV 175 ff.; LXVI 187. - Martin, Nos peintres et sculpteurs, 1897. - Art et Décor., III (1898); VI (1899); XXVI (1909). Revue des Arts décor., XIX (1&99) 188, 187. Illustr. Elsäiss. Rundschau, V (1908) 40141. - Forrer, Dict. of Medall., 11 (1904). - De Dompierred e Chaufepié, Médaill. et Plaq., (Harlem. o. J.) D. 64. 84. PI. XLV. LIX. - Revue lorraine ill., IV (1909) 98- Fosseyeaux, Inventaire des objet d'Art appartamente à administration etc. Collectio (1910)- Legrande-Landouzy, Collection artiste de la Faculté de Medicine de Paris, o. J., p. 174 No. 221- Chronique des Arts, 1917-19 p.256 - Catalogue de l'exposition decénn des Beaux Arts Paris 1900 p. 269; Catalog de luxe, Panama Pacific Exposition , San Francisco, 1915 I 353. 2010-11-15 08:25:09 GMT 16 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/15-Emmanuel-Frémiet Emmanuel FrémietArtist name: Frémiet, Emmanuel Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1824.12.06 Place of birth: Paris Date of death: 1910.09.10 Place of death: Paris Place(s) cited: Paris Emmanuel Fremiet was born in Paris, France December 6th 1824 into an upper middle class Paris family with close ties to the art world. His Cousin Sophie, an accomplished painter and early mentor to the young Fremiet, married the famous French sculptor Francois Rude and his mother was also an accomplished artist who constantly encouraged him. Young Emmanuel started to receive his formal training in art at the age of five at a private school in Paris and he was accepted at the prestigious Ecole des Arts Décoratif at the unheard age of thirteen. He was to apprentice under the painter Jacques-Christophe Werner at the age of sixteen. He showed so much promise that within the year he was employed by Werner as his head lithographer whose duties were to prepare all of the drawings of both animals and men. Fremiet also studied sculpture and modeling under his uncle Francois Rude, but in spite of all of his early training and advantages it was some time before he and his cousin Sophie convinced Rude to take him on as a pupil in his studio. Much of Fremiet's time as a student was spent at the Jardin de Plantes in Paris, studying the live animals and like Barye before him, participating in the dissections of the ones who had died. Fremiet spent a great deal of his young life at these famous Paris zoological gardens, first being exposed to the many different wild animals as a student when he was only seven. Fremiet's ties to the Jardin de Plantes were further bonded when he was appointed to succeed Antoine Louis Barye as Professor of Drawing following Barye's death in 1875. Like so many of the great sculptors, Fremiet spent time studying and drawing at the morgue, as well as at various embalmers in Paris. This enabled him to reproduce the muscle and bone structure of both humans and animals very accurately in his works. He is well known for the constant attention to detail in all his animal and monumental works and it is unfortunate that much criticism of his close attention to detail was directed at his numerous monumental sculptures after his death. Fremiet exhibited his first sculpture in the Paris Salon in 1843 at the age of nineteen and he continued to exhibit at the annual Salon throughout his lifetime, wining numerous awards and medals. During the early part of his career Fremiet concentrated on editions of small animal bronzes which he cast himself in his own foundry. These early, small and competently executed bronzes are very desirable and highly prized today by museums and collectors. He did not follow the violent cruel style, which was popular at the time. His work is noted for its soft, gentle, and often amusing nature. Many of his smaller bronzes were sold directly from his workshop and foundry at 42 Boulevard du Temple and later the Faubourg Saint Honoré. Fremiet's commercial catalogue, dated 1850-60, lists 68 mostly animalier titles. Fremiet received the first of his many state public commission for a monument in 1849 at the age of twenty-five and was to receive more commissions for public monuments than any other sculptor before or since his time. It is almost impossible to walk the streets of Paris without coming across one of Fremiet's many monuments. At the outset of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, after witnessing the destruction and carnage of this first of the many modern European wars, Fremiet became discouraged with his career in art, seeing it as a frivolous adventure. He fled Paris during the siege and his house and belongings were looted in his absence. After his return, he seriously thought of giving up sculpture altogether and for a long time refused to draw or model. Fortunately this depression appears to have been replaced with a renewed enthusiasm in sculpture as shown in the years that followed by the creation of some of his most important works. Following Fremiet's death in 1910 all of his models were sold to F. Barbedienne the famous Paris foundry. His bronzes were cast by them up until the First World War and bear their foundry seal. Next to Antoine Louis Barye, Fremiet is considered to be the finest and best known of the French Animalier sculptors and responsible for bringing animal sculpture into fashion with the collecting world. He has the distinction of being the sculptor with the greatest influence on the numerous young art students flocking to Paris from America in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was not uncommon for Fremiet to instruct 20 or more pupils at a single time in his studio or at the Louvre where he was director of sculpture. One of his more notable American students was Augustus Saint-Gaudens who had a small bronze sculpture of Pan and the Bear Cubs that he purchased from his teacher placed prominently on his desk in his home in Cornish New Hampshire throughout his life, and which still resides there today. Les Animaliers by Jane Horsell (1971) The Animaliers by James Mackay (1973) Fremiet by Philippe Fauré-Fremiet (1934) Animals in Bronze by Christopher Payne (1986) Bronzes of the 19th Century by Pierre Kjellberg (1994) A Concise History of Bronzes by George Savage (1968) E. Fremiet un Maitre Imagier by Jacques de Biez (1896) Dictionnaire des Peintres et Sculpteurs by E. Bénézit (1966) Dictionnaire de Sculpteurs de l'école Française by Stanislas Lami (1914) Emmanuel Fremiet La main et le multiple by Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon (1988) 2010-11-15 08:24:41 GMT 15 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/14-Falconet,-Etienne-Maurice Falconet, Etienne-MauriceFalconet, Etienne-Maurice(b Paris, 1 Dec 1716; d Paris, 24 Jan 1791). French sculptor, designer and writer. He was one of the foremost French sculptors of the mid-18th century and is best known for his small-scale marble sculptures on gallant and allegorical themes, as well as for his widely reproduced models for the porcelain factory at Sèvres. From 1766 to 1778, however, he lived in Russia, and his most interesting work is the monumental bronze equestrian statue of Peter the Great that he designed for St Petersburg. Falconet was an autodidact of fiercely independent and moralistic spirit; he wrote a number of essays on the theory of art and left notable correspondences with the philosopher Denis Diderot and with Catherine the Great of Russia. He was made a professor at the Académie Royale in 1761. His son Pierre-Etienne Falconet (1741-91) was a minor draughtsman and engraver, whose most notable achievement was the illustrating of his father's article on sculpture for the Encyclopédie of Diderot. 1. Sculpture.2. Writings. 1. Sculpture.(i) Early career and commissions for the Bâtiments du Roi.Falconet was of humble origin; he entered the Paris studio of Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (ii) at the age of 18 and remained there for almost 10 years. He never went to Italy, but in spite of this was profoundly influenced by Bernini and the Baroque. In 1744, seeking acceptance into the Académie Royale, he presented the group Milo of Crotona (marble; Paris, Louvre), but it was thought to be too like the famous work on the same theme by Pierre Puget. The following year he was given a different subject, but it was on the strength of the Milo that he was eventually received (reçu) into the Académie in 1754. During this period Falconet worked to fill the gaps in his education, and no other sculptor of his time was to display such an inquiring mind. The inventory of his library shows the breadth and depth of his reading, much of which can be found more or less assimilated in his theoretical and polemical works (see §2 below). The first commission Falconet received from the Bâtiments du Roi dates from 1748. It was for a marble, France Embracing the Bust of Louis XV, after a drawing by Charles-Antoine Coypel. Abandoned by Falconet, the work (Libourne, Hôtel de Ville) was not finished until 30 years later by Augustin Pajou. In 1750 Lenormant de Tournehem, Directeur des Bâtiments du Roi, commissioned a marble Genius of Music, the small model of which appeared at the Paris Salon of 1751. The statue (h. 2.08 m; Paris, Louvre), intended as a pendant to Lambert-Sigisbert Adam's Lyric Poetry in the entrance hall of the château of Bellevue, is an allegorical portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour. Falconet enjoyed further official patronage; in 1753 he was commissioned to execute La Jardinière, a stone statuette for the dairy at the château of Crécy, in 1758 the Duck Shoot, a plaster relief for the salon of the château of Saint-Hubert, and in 1759 a statue of Minerva for the gardens of the château of Choisy (all untraced or never executed). His last commission for the Bâtiments was in 1764, for a statue of Winter (St Petersburg, Gatchina Pal.), which was intended for the gardens of the Petit Trianon, Versailles, but was instead purchased by Catherine the Great. (ii) Work for the Marquise de Pompadour; small models and groups.The Marquise de Pompadour was Falconet's greatest patron. In 1757 she appointed him as director of the sculpture studios at the porcelain factory at Sèvres, an office that he filled until his departure for Russia in 1766. During this period he either executed or supervised the making of about 100 models for statuettes or groups. These fall into two categories, original creations and works made from designs by François Boucher. Of the figurines inspired by Boucher one series is devoted to trades, and a subsequent series, dating from several years later, is on the theme of the attractions of the fair. Several other loosely connected groups, also the result of collaboration with Boucher, were based on the fables of Jean de La Fontaine. The subjects attributable solely to Falconet are either those that are reductions of his marble statues or compositions specially designed for manufacture in biscuit. Some of these charming miniatures preserve the memory of statues that have been destroyed or have disappeared, such as Erigone or Sweet Melancholy; others are based on contemporary theatrical entertainments: there is a cycle of dances from the Opéra ballet, subjects from the comic operas of Charles-Simon Favart, and from the pastoral works of Jean François Marmontel; others illustrate the repertory of the Comédiens Italiens. Falconet owed his greatest popularity to his small marble works, groups such as his Venus and Cupid, or figures such as his seated or crouching female Bathers, which were widely used for ornamenting clock cases. Initially these were produced in a number of versions in his studio, then imitated by commercial copyists during his lifetime and into the 19th and 20th centuries. He also provided models for some of the most famous goldsmiths of his time, including Thomas Germain, Robert-Joseph Auguste and the Roettier family. Furniture signed falconet is, however, the work of the ébéniste Louis Falconet. (iii) Exhibits at the Paris Salon.During the same period of 1757 to 1765, Falconet exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon, where he showed a series of light-hearted works of which the best-known are the Threatening Cupid (see fig.) and the famous Standing Bather (both marble, exh. Salon 1757; Paris, Louvre), both of which gave rise to an extraordinary number of copies. At the Salon of 1763 Falconet showed the marble group of Pygmalion at the Feet of his Statue (Paris, Louvre), of which there are many marble replicas, as well as reduced versions in Sèvres biscuit. His 1765 exhibit, a relief of Alexander Offering One of his Concubines to the Painter Apelles (priv. col.) is, by contrast, a unique work. (iv) Monumental and ecclesiastical works.Falconet executed a number of monumental works before leaving Paris for St Petersburg, including four tombs, although only that of Mme La Live de Jully (1754) is known, both from a drawing of the whole monument (Paris, Carnavalet) and from the dull marble portrait medallion that is all that survives in situ in St Roch, Paris. He also carved seven statues for the same church, but only Christ in Agony, the terracotta model for which was shown at the Salon of 1757, survives; its pose recalls that of Bernini's St Teresa (Rome, S Maria della Vittoria). Falconet was in the process of completing a model for a statue of St Ambrose for the Dôme des Invalides, Paris, when he left for Russia in 1766. Through Denis Diderot he was introduced to the Empress Catherine the Great, who commissioned from him a bronze equestrian statue in Honour of Peter the Great in St Petersburg (Pl. Dekabristov; for illustration see Equestrian monument), an opportunity at last to give full scope to his talent. Initially much in favor with Catherine, Falconet saw his position gradually deteriorate, and he had to leave Russia before his work was unveiled in 1782. The originality of his conception-which combines a horse rearing on the summit of a steep rock with a hero represented as legislator rather than conqueror, eliminates any allegorical figure apart from the serpent of envy crushed beneath the horse's hoofs, and has an inscription of only four words-makes the statue striking in its grandeur and simplicity. His pupil Marie Anne Collot modeled the head of the statue. Beside this masterly success the other works Falconet executed in St Petersburg seem of little importance. These were copies of his early works, the completion of roughed-out marbles, and the making of models for goldsmiths and the Imperial porcelain factory. His output came to an abrupt end after the statue of Peter the Great. He was completely taken up with the revision of his writings during a visit to The Hague, when a stroke deprived him of the use of his right side, and he was unable to take up his chisel again. BIBLIOGRAPHYL. Réau: Etienne-Maurice Falconet, 2 vols (Paris, 1922) G. Levitine: The Sculpture of Falconet (New York, 1972) [with an Eng. trans. of Falconet's 'Réflexions sur la sculpture'] . Writings.All of Falconet's essays and some of his correspondence were published in his Oeuvres complètes in 1781. The earliest item, the 'Réflexions sur la sculpture' (1760), was written at the request of Diderot for the Encyclopédie. It espouses traditionally accepted academic standards. Falconet's most persistent ideas are set forth in essays such as the 'Observations sur la statue de Marc-Aurèle' and 'Quelques idées sur le beau dans l'art'. Volumes iii and iv of his Oeuvres are devoted to his translation of and commentary on the books of Pliny's Natural History that deal with painting and sculpture. Falconet claimed that Pliny was incompetent to discuss the visual arts, and he directed the same charge repeatedly throughout his writings against other critics and commentators on art, including Pausanias, Cicero, Shaftesbury, Winckelmann and Voltaire. He consistently expressed enmity towards any attempt to infringe on artists' autonomy and authority. The polemical tone and haphazard organization of Falconet's ideas make many portions of the Oeuvres complètes difficult for the reader. Their contents were in fact largely inspired by a controversy between Falconet and Diderot. The latter claimed that even vanished works of art could achieve enduring glory if a writer had praised them. Falconet resentfully denied that a desire for the admiration of posterity motivates artists' production. This debate furnished the primary content for the Falconet-Diderot correspondence (1765-73), which contains some of the most important ideas of both men. Falconet also maintained an extensive correspondence (1767-78) with Catherine the Great. It deals with artistic, literary, philosophic, religious and political questions. WRITINGSOeuvres complètes, 6 vols (Lausanne, 1781) L. Réau, ed.: Correspondance de Falconet avec Catherine II (Paris, 1921) Y. Benot, ed.: Diderot et Falconet: Le Pour et le contre (Paris, 1958) [corr. dealing with the dispute on posterity] BIBLIOGRAPHYH. Dieckmann and J. Seznec: 'The Horse of Marcus Aurelius', J. Warb. & Court. Inst., xv (1952), pp. 198-228 A. B. Weinshenker: Falconet: His Writings and his Friend Diderot (Geneva, 1966) Diderot et l'art de Boucher à David (exh. cat., ed. M.-C. Sahut and N. Volle; Paris, Hôtel de la Monnaie, 1984-5), pp. 448-54 2010-11-15 08:24:15 GMT 14 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/13-Dumaige,-Etienne-Henry Dumaige, Etienne Henry  Artist name Dumaige, Etienne Henry Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1830.03.30 Place of birth: Paris Date of death: 1888.03.31 Place of death: St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vié Place(s) cited: Paris; Tours Dumaige studied sculpture under Féuchère and Dumont. He exhibited his sculptures depicting groups, statues, and busts at the Salon from 1863-1886. He is most well known for his statuettes of dancers. . He sculpted a large number of busts, groups and statuettes in marble, plaster and bronze, including statuettes of Desmoulins and Rabelais. In 1864 he exhibited a group in bronze entitled " L'âge d'or", a statue in bronze, "Hero", in 1864, "Retour des champs" in 1866, a marble bust of Moliere in 1872, a statuette entitled Francois Rabelais in terracotta in 1873, a statue in marble for the city hall in Tours in 1880, "Camille Desmoulins" in plaster 1882, and "Patrie", a bronze in 1886. Different works were cast in bronze, in particular, dancers, as well as works entitled, Salome, and Esmeralda, and also a grenadier of 1792 entitled Après les combat, a reduction of Camille Desmoulins. References Bellier de la Chavignerie, E. & L. Auvray. Dictionnaire général des artistes de l'école française (Bellier-Auvray) (1887) 5 v.Lami, S. Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l'école française (1921) 8 v.Mallett, D. Mallett's index of artists: international and biographical (1935) Supplement (1940) Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon Der Bildenden Künstler Von Der Antike Bis Zur Gegenwart,MacKay, J. A dictionary of Western Sculptors in Bronze, 1976Busse, J. Internationales Handbuch aller Maler und Bildhauer des 19. Jahrhunderts (Busse-Verzeichnis) (1977)Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; La Sculpture Française au XIXe Siecle, 1986. Berman, H. Bronzes- Sculptors and Founders, 1987Forrest, M., Art Bronzes, 1988Kjellberg, P. Bronzes of the 19th Century, A Dictionary of Sculptors, 1992 Bénézit, E. Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Gründ, 1999.Davenport, Ray; Davenport's Art Reference, 2001 Citations Rich. D'Art, Paris, Mon.civ.III 18;Prov. Musee. Civ.V 382-3. Chronicle des Arts 1888 p.109 Salon Catalog 2010-11-15 08:23:52 GMT 13 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/12-Drouot,-Edouard Drouot, EdouardEdouard DrouotFrenchBorn in Sommevoire (Haute - Marne) 1859. Died Paris 1945. He studied in Paris under Emile Thomas and Matherin Moreau and worked as a genre painter and sculptor. He won a third class medal at the Salon of 1892 and a honorable mention at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 for his work entitled L'Amateur, a life size marble submitted to the Paris Salon of 1893. Drouot had a vast repertory, a variety of themes, and a sense of movement and expression which made this artist an outstanding member of the sculpture community at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century. His Salon entries encompassed sporting and hunting scenes, exotic Eastern subjects mythological figures, nymphs and whimsical allegories. There is always an underlying penchant for the fluidity of the Art Nouveau movement in his subjects and a recurrent ability to arrest movement and expression with a touch of genius.   Bibliography:Harold Berman, Bronzes Sculptors and Founders", Vols. 1-4.Pierre Kjellberg, Bronzes of the XIX Century".   2010-11-15 08:23:35 GMT 12 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/11-Coutan,-Jules-Felix Coutan, Jules-FelixCoutan, Jules-Felix   (Geboren: Paris, 22 Sept 1848; Gestorben: Paris, 23 Feb 1939). French sculptor and designer. He was a pupil of Pierre-Jules Cavelier at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and in 1872 won the Prix de Rome for his statue Ajax Struck down while Defying the Gods, spending the years 1872/6 at the Academie de France in Rome. In 1876 he sent his first submission to the Paris Salon, and from 1880 he was involved in many projects for the sculptural decoration of public buildings in Paris, including the Palais de Justice, the Hotel de Ville (herald in 14th-century dress, bronze, 1885), the Bibliotheque Nationale (Calligraphy, marble, 1893) and the Opera-Comique (caryatids, 1899). His bronze relief of Eagle Hunters for the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris (plaster version, 1900; Paris, Mus. D'Orsay), is an example of the fin-de-siecle neo-Baroque style. 2010-11-15 08:23:17 GMT 11 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/10-Coustou,-Francois Coustou, FrancoisFrench family of sculptors. Francois Coustou (d 1690), a wood-carver and brother-in-law of the sculptor Antoine Coyzevox, had two sons who became sculptors, (1) Nicolas Coustou and (2) Guillaume Coustou (i), and a daughter, Eleonore, whose son was the sculptor Claude Francin. The brothers moved from their native Lyon to train with Coyzevox in Paris, where they spent the greater part of their careers. They worked on royal projects, notably at the chateau of Marly, Yvelines, which was the original location of Guillaume Coustou's celebrated Marly Horses now in the Louvre, Paris. Of Guillaume's sons, Charles Pierre Coustou (1721--97) was active as an architect, and (3) Guillaume Coustou (ii) became a sculptor, like his uncle and father spending his early career in Rome and returning to work in France but also contributing to the statuary for Sanssouci, Potsdam.(1) Nicolas Coustou(2) Guillaume Coustou (i)(3) Guillaume Coustou (ii) (1) Nicolas Coustou[l'aîné] (b Lyon, bapt 9 Jan 1658; d Paris, 1 May 1733). In 1676 he went to Paris to study under his maternal uncle, Antoine Coyzevox. In 1682 he won the Prix de Rome, and from 1683 until 1686 he was at the Académie de France in Rome, where among other works he made a copy with variations (marble; Versailles, Château, Parterre de Latone) of the antique statue of Commodus as Hercules. On his return to France he was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale in 1687 and received (reçu) as a full member in 1693 on presentation of an allegorical relief representing the Recovery of Louis XIV from Illness (marble; Paris, Louvre). He had a very successful academic career there, being appointed a professor in 1702, rector in 1720 and chancellor in the year of his death. In 1690 he married Suzanne Houasse, daughter of the painter René-Antoine Houasse.From 1691 Nicolas Coustou was one of the busiest sculptors employed by the Bâtiments du Roi, carving numerous stone reliefs for the interior of the Dôme des Invalides, Paris (1691-9; in situ), and for the façade a colossal marble statue of St Louis (1701-6; in situ), after a model by François Girardon, while for Versailles he produced a large marble statue of Julius Caesar (1696-1713; installed Paris, Jard. Tuileries, 1722; now Paris, Louvre). At this time he also worked on private commissions, including the monument to the Maréchal de Créqui in the church of the Jacobins, Paris (marble and bronze, in collaboration with Coyzevox, 1695; destr.), and statues of St Joseph and St Augustine for the Order of the Visitandines at Moulins, Allier (stone, 1696; Moulins, Lycée Banville, chapel). However, most of his energies were devoted to the decoration for Louis XIV of the park at the château of Marly, Yvelines, where from 1697 he was responsible for numerous vases, sphinxes, groups of children and tritons (destr. or dispersed). On a more ambitious scale he also executed for Marly the great group of The Seine and the Marne (marble, 1699-1712; now Paris, Jard. Tuileries; see fig.) and the dynamic Baroque groups Meleager Slaying a Stag and Meleager Slaying a Boar (marble, 1703-6; in situ), as well as the seated figures of Adonis, the Nymph with a Quiver and the Nymph with a Dove (all marble, 1708-10; Paris, Louvre). The works for Marly all have the bucolic charm that epitomizes the informal spirit of the park.In 1709-10 Nicolas contributed minor works to the decoration of the chapel of the château of Versailles, but in his affecting Pietà, part of the ensemble of the Vow of Louis XIII for the choir of Notre-Dame, Paris (marble, 1712-28; in situ), he created one of the masterpieces of French 18th-century religious sculpture. Equally masterful in another vein is his bronze reclining female nude representing the river Saône, designed as one of a pair with his brother's Rhône to adorn the pedestal of Martin Desjardins's equestrian statue of Louis XIV (1714-20; destr.) in the Place Bellecour, Lyon. A decline in quality may be detected in such later works as the large allegorical relief of the Crossing of the Rhine (marble, 1715-18; Versailles, Château) and the statue of Louis XV as Jupiter (marble, 1726-31; Paris, Louvre). It may be argued, however, that the former was completed by his brother and the latter was designed as a pendant to Guillaume's Marie Leczinska as Juno. Nonetheless, the statue of the Maréchal de Villars in Roman military costume (marble, 1719-33; Aix-en-Provence, Hôtel de Ville), which was also finished by his brother, exemplifies the magisterial quality of his work.Nicolas Coustou was the most gifted exponent of the developing ROCOCO style in sculpture, creating works in which animated grace predominates but never at the expense of structure and harmony. He was aided in his achievement by his remarkable facility in the working of marble. Through such pupils as Claude Lamoureux ( fl 1686-99), who worked in Denmark, Jacques Bousseau, who was active at the Spanish court, and Louis-François Roubiliac, who worked in England, he exerted considerable influence on the evolution of European sculpture.2) Guillaume Coustou (i)[le jeune] (b Lyon, 29 Nov 1677; d Paris, 22 Feb 1746). Brother of (1) Nicolas Coustou. He trained with his brother and their maternal uncle Antoine Coyzevox in Paris. In 1697 he won the Prix de Rome, but he was not awarded a place at the Académie de France in Rome. Instead he went to Italy at his own expense and worked in Rome for Pierre Legros (ii), by whose lively Baroque style he was influenced. Around 1700 he returned to France to assist Coyzevox with the execution of his two monumental equestrian statues of Fame and Mercury, intended for the ornamental horse pond in the park at the château of Marly, Yvelines (marble, 1701-2; Paris, Louvre). In 1704 he was received (reçu) as a member of the Académie Royale, presenting a statuette of Hercules on the Funeral Pyre (marble; Paris, Louvre), a work that reveals his virtuosity as a marble-carver and his predisposition for dynamic composition. He had a successful career within the Académie: in 1706 he was appointed assistant professor, in 1715 professor, in 1726 assistant rector and in 1733 rector.Like both his uncle and his brother, Guillaume worked mainly for the crown, receiving numerous commissions from the Bâtiments du Roi. His first important work was the decorative bronze sculpture executed in collaboration with Corneille van Clève for the baldacchino of the high altar of the Dôme des Invalides, Paris (1702; destr. 1790s). From 1707 he made important contributions to the sculptural decoration of the chapel of the château of Versailles, including lead and stone statues for the exterior and stone bas-reliefs for the interior. With van Clève he appears to have been responsible for the introduction in the sphere of religious sculpture of the new, elegant and animated sculptural style that was to supersede the classicism prevailing at Versailles. For the more light-hearted context of the park at Marly, he carved running statues of Hippomenes and Daphne (marble, 1711-14; Paris, Louvre) as companions to the statue of Atalanta by Pierre Le Pautre and that of Apollo by Nicolas Coustou. With Coyzevox and Nicolas, he worked on the last great official project of Louis XIV's reign, carving the magnificent kneeling statue of Louis XIII (1712-15) for the ensemble of the Vow of Louis XIII in the choir of Notre-Dame, Paris. He collaborated again with his brother when he modelled the powerful reclining river god representing the Rhône, while Nicolas worked on Saône, for the pedestal of Desjardins's equestrian statue of Louis XIV (bronze, 1714-20; destr.) in the Place Bellecour, Lyon.Guillaume Coustou continued to be in demand in the years after Louis XIV's death, when he executed a number of important private commissions, including funerary monuments such as those to Maréchal d'Estrées and his Wife (marble, c. 1720; Versailles, Château) and Cardinal Dubois (marble, 1725; fragment, Paris, St Roch). He carved the decorations for the bridges at Blois, Loir-et-Cher (1724; in situ), Juvisy-sur-Orge, Essonne (1728; dismantled 1972), and Compiègne, Oise (1730; destr. World War I). He also decorated the façade of the Palais-Bourbon (c. 1724-30; destr.) and produced portrait busts, such as those of the Marquis d'Argenson (marble, c. 1721; Versailles, Château) and Samuel Bernard (marble, 1727; New York, Met.), as well as religious sculpture, including a statue of St Francis Xavier (marble, 1722; Paris, St Germain-des-Prés). In 1725 the Duc d'Antin, Surintendant des Bâtiments du Roi, commissioned the elegant and light-hearted statue of Marie Leczinska as Juno (marble, 1726-31; Paris, Louvre) as a pendant to Nicolas Coustou's Louis XV as Jupiter. Guillaume's ornamental carving for the façade of the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris-for example his two monumental groups of Mars and Minerva (1733-4)-have all the grandeur and authority of the art of Louis XIV's reign. By the 1730s he was the most prominent sculptor in royal employment, and this status was acknowledged when he was given the commission for what have become his most famous works, two magnificent monumental horses restrained by grooms, intended to replace the less energetic horses by Coyzevox at the horse pond at Marly. The Marly Horses (marble, 1739-45; ex-Place de la Concorde, Paris; now Paris, Louvre; see fig.) are among the sculptural masterpieces of the 18th century and have been widely reproduced, in a variety of materials. Among Guillaume's pupils were his son (3) Guillaume (ii), his nephew Claude Francin and Edme Bouchardon. (3) Guillaume Coustou (ii)(b Paris, 19 March 1716; d Paris, 13 July 1777). Son of (2) Guillaume Coustou (i). Having studied with his father, he won the Prix de Rome in 1735 and was at the Académie de France in Rome in 1736-40. In 1742 he was received (reçu) as a member of the Académie Royale, presenting a seated statue of Vulcan (marble; Paris, Louvre), and he went on to pursue a successful official career. His eclectic style mirrored the evolution of French sculpture in the mid-18th century, ranging from the Baroque of the Apotheosis of St Francis Xavier (marble, c. 1743; Bordeaux, St Paul) to the cold classicism of his statue of Apollo commissioned by Mme de Pompadour for the park at the château of Bellevue, Hautes-de-Seine (marble, 1753; Versailles, Château). He worked fluently but without great originality in various sculptural forms, producing portrait busts and religious and mythological works. Among his most important sculptures are the statues of Mars and Venus, commissioned by Frederick II of Prussia (marble, 1769; Potsdam, Schloss Sanssouci); the pedimental reliefs executed in conjunction with Michel-Ange Slodtz for Ange-Jacques Gabriel's buildings (from 1753) on the Place de la Concorde (originally Place Louis XV), Paris; and the monument in Sens Cathedral to the Dauphin (son of Louis XV), Louis de Bourbon and his Wife (marble and bronze, 1766-77). Although its allegorical programme, devised by Charles-Nicolas Cochin II, has been criticized as over-complex, this free-standing tomb, an early masterpiece of sentimental Neo-classicism, is one of the most important pieces of funerary sculpture of the 18th century in France.BIBLIOGRAPHYMariette; Lami; Souchal; Thieme-Becker C. de Contamine: Eloge historique de M. Coustou l'aîné (Paris, 1737) A.-N. Dézallier d'Argenville: Vies des fameux architectes et sculpteurs (1788), p. 276 L. Gougenot: Vie de Coustou le jeune (Paris, 1903) M. Audin and E. Vial: Dictionnaire des artistes lyonnais (Paris, 1918) F. Souchal: Les Frères Coustou (Paris, 1980) --: 'Guillaume II Coustou (1716-1777): Notes biographiques sur un sculpteur de Louis XV', Thèmes et figures du siècle des lumières, ed. R. Trousson (Geneva, 1980), pp. 259-70 --: 'L'Apothéose de Saint François Xavier de Guillaume II Coustou', Gaz. B.-A., n. s. 6, cxi (1988), pp. 43-8 2010-11-15 08:23:00 GMT 10 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/9-Collas,-Louis-Antoine Collas, Louis-AntoineArtist name Collas, Louis-Antoine Proper name: Collas, Louis-Augustin Cited Artist: Collas, Louis Augustin (1806) Sex: m Artist occupation: painter; portrait painter; miniature painter Geographical data: France; Russia; United States State: France; Russia; United States of America Date of birth: 1775 Place of birth: Bordeaux Date of death: 1833 Place of death: Paris? Place(s) cited: St. Petersburg; Paris; Bordeaux; New York; New Orleans (Louisiana); Charleston (South Carolina) Book Sources: AKL XX, 1998, 279 Born in Bordeaux, France, Louis Antoine Collas studied art in Paris with François André Vincent. An adept miniature and portrait painter, Collas first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1898 with a self-portrait. In 1808 he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, for three years where he painted miniatures and portraits of aristocrats and the czar's court. In 1812 he again began exhibiting at the Salon. Seeking patrons and exhibition opportunities, Collas arrived in New York City in 1816. He traveled up and down the eastern seaboard, receiving commission in Philadelphia and Charleston and exhibiting at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York City and the Somewhere around 1816-18 he traveled to in Charleston/South Carolina. He experienced short stays in Baltimore (1818) and Philadelphia (1819); and then once anew in New York in 1820. 1822-24 and 1826-29 he became a prominent miniaturist in New Orleans. In 1829 returned to Bordeaux, and around 1831/32 was noted in Paris, where he exhibited 1831 and again 1833 in the salon American Academy in Philadelphia. Collas was among the earliest group of the European artists to work in New Orleans, which he reached in 1822. Until 1829 he visited Louisiana regularly, painting miniatures and portraits of the growing middle class of plantation owners and merchants. Although he is to have painted also large sized portraits, at present only portrait miniatures are well known. While the work of the early years in France of women, are characterized by a rigid uniformity, his Russian examples tend to exemplify self-willed realism.WORKS BORDEAUX, MAD: Two Works of Ladies, 1799/1800 and 1802. CAMBRIDGE/Mass., Harvard University AM. CHARLESTON / South Carolina, Gibbes Museum of Art. DEN HAAG, Mauritshuis: Großherzogin Katharina Pavlovna von Rußland, 1809. NEW ORLEANS/ La., Museum of Art: Viscount Bolingbroke, 1816. - Louisiana State Museum: 4 Portraits; 2 Miniatures, von Etienne de Bore. NEW YORK, Metropolitan Museum - American Jewish Society: Joshua Moses, 1804. ST. PETERSBURG, Hermitage: Großherzogin Anna Pavlovna von Rußland, 1809. WALTHAM/Mass., Amer. Jewish Historical Society, WORCESTER/Mass., AM: Unbekannter, 1817. EXHIBITIONS G: 1816, '20 New York, Amer. AFA / 1928 Bordeaux, MBA, Dép. d'Art Ancien: Expos. d'iconogr. bordelaise / 1936 Charleston, Gibbes AG: An exhibition of miniatures owned in South Carolina / 1982 Leningrad, Ermitage: Zapadnoevropeijskaia min. XVI-XIX wekow / 1990 New York, Metrop. Mus. of Art: Amer. min. in the Manney Coll. / 1991 Den Haag, Mauritshuis: Portrait in miniature. BIBLIOGRAPHY Thieme-Becker 7, 1912 (Lit.). Groce/Wallace, 1957; DBF IX, 1961; Schidlof I, 1964; Young, 1968; Bénézit III, 1976 (bei allen [vier] auch s.v. C., Louis Augustin); Encyclopedia of New Orleans artists 1718-1918, New Orleans 1987; Blättel, 1992; Karel, 1992 (s.v. C., Louis-Augustin). - Großherzog N.M. Romanov, Portrait russes, II, StP. 1905-09, Taf. XCII, Nr 178; Lemberger, 1911; F.Lugt, Le portrait-miniatura, Am. 1917, 102, Abb. 49; T.Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, N.Y. 1921, 26; H.B. Wehle, American Minature, N.Y. 1927, Taf. XXXI; H.R. London, Min. and silhouettes of early American Jews, To. 1970, 49 s., 63, 137; Farr Thompson, 1970; J.Du Pasquier, Pierre-Edouard Dagoty et la min. bordelaise au XIXe s., Chartres 1974, 17-20; P.Pierrepont Bardo, Engl. and continental portr. min. The Latter-Schlesinger Coll. (K Mus. of Art), New Orleans 1978, 111; M.R. Severens, The min. portr. coll. of the Carolina Art Assoc. (K), Charleston 1984, 22-25; S.E. Strickler, American Portrait miniatures in the the Worcester AM Coll. (K), Worcester, Mass. 1989, 46 s.; K.E. Schaffers-Bodenhausen/M.E. Tiethoff-Spliethoff, The portr. min. in the coll. of the House of Orange-Nassau, Zwolle 1993, 63, 299, 485; L'âge d'or du petit portr. (K Bordeaux/Genf/Paris).   2010-11-15 08:22:41 GMT 9 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/8-Clodion ClodionArtist name Clodion ThB name: Clodion Proper name: Michel, Claude Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor Geographical data: France; Italy State: France; Italy Date of birth: 1738.12.20 Place of birth: Nancy Date of death: 1814.03.28 Place of death: Paris Place(s) cited: Paris; Rome; Nancy French sculptor. He was the greatest master of lyrical small-scale sculpture active in France in the later 18th century, an age that witnessed the decline of the Rococo, the rise of Romanticism and the cataclysms of revolution. Clodion's works in terracotta embody a host of fascinating and still unresolved problems, questions of autograph and attribution, the chronology of his many undated designs, the artistic sources of his works, and the position of his lyric art in the radically changing society of his time. 1. Training and Roman period, to 1771.2. Career in France up to the French Revolution.3. Later career. 1. Training and Roman period, to 1771.Clodion trained in Paris with his uncle Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, whose mannered, late Baroque works grace the gardens of Versailles and of the Sanssouci Palace at Potsdam. He encountered in Adam's sculpture qualities of warmth and intimacy, and a spirit suited to designs on a small scale, traits his own oeuvre would sustain. Adam even created small bacchanalian groups, a concept of great importance for Clodion.In 1759, the year of his uncle's death, Clodion won the Prix de Rome for sculpture. He remained in Paris, however, as a student at the Ecole Royale des Elèves Protégés until 1762, when he left for Rome to begin an Italian sojourn of nine years. This stay, for part of which he shared a studio with Jean-Antoine Houdon, was crucial in shaping his art. Antique sculpture, the art of Michelangelo and the great early marbles of Bernini in the Villa Borghese at Rome affected him deeply. Bernini's small terracotta studies for monumental designs doubtless also impressed Clodion with their intimacy and dynamism, arguing for the excellence possible in work on a small scale, the mode ultimately central for him.The Roman terracottas address a wide array of figure-types, themes and technical challenges. The beautiful Penitent Magdalen (195×195×250 mm, 1767; Paris, Louvre), is semi-recumbent in pose, like the ancient Cleopatra in the Vatican. A Baroque psychological richness and a consummate freshness of technical handling stamp her grieving figure with Clodion's unmistakable fire. River Rhine (305×279×457 mm, 1765; Fort Worth, TX, Kimbell A. Mus.), displays the wide torso and extended arms, the physical bulk and acrobatic lassitude of Pietro da Cortona's Defeated Giants, a fresco in the Palazzo Barberini, Rome. Clodion's Minerva (h. 475 mm, 1766; New York, Met.), an elegant standing figure, is hieratic in tone, an antiquarian melding of two Roman exemplars studied in the Chiarimonti and Giustiniani collections. Egyptian Girl with a Shrine of Isis (h. 480 mm; Paris, Louvre) contrasts the archaic style of its tiny idol with the easy contrapposto of the maiden. Archaeological discoveries made at Hadrian's Villa in the 1760s echo here, as they do in the art of Piranesi. Clodion's pictorial friezes balance intaglio linear passages with images subtly raised in very low relief. Vase with Five Women Offering Sacrifice (h. 389 mm, 1766; Paris, Louvre) is an elegant rilievo schiacciato, conceived in a style somewhere between the painterly atmospherics of Donatello's Delivery of the Keys (London, V&A) and the classical presence of the Gemma Augustea (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). 2. Career in France up to the French Revolution.Clodion was reluctant to leave Rome, but in 1771 he was ordered to return to Paris by the Marquis de Marigny, Directeur des Bâtiments du Roi. There he was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale in 1773 and established a productive workshop in the Place Louis XV. Clodion's early sculptures in relief prepare us for the brilliance of later designs, such as the Triumph of Galatea (terracotta, 298×1612 mm, exh. Salon 1779; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst.), whose trumpeting Triton rivals in impact the Marine Frieze on the Altar of Ahenobarbus (Munich, Glyp.). Vase with a Dance of Satyrs and Satyresses (Tonnerre stone, h. 1070 mm, 1782; Paris, Louvre) demonstrates a playful warmth and an atmospheric sensuality of surface, a work from an ensemble made for the bath at the Hôtel de Besenval.The finest of his several works on a monumental scale is the marble Montesquieu, commissioned by the Comte d'Angiviller for the series the Great Men of France. A sparkling portrayal, the forceful, spiralling posture of the seated Montesquieu recalls Michelangelo's Erythrean Sibyl on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Rome. Clodion's greatest concentration, however, was on small terracotta groups. Satyr and Bacchante (h. 590 mm, c. 1780; New York, Met.) embodies the Baroque traits of the genre: a relief-like composition reminiscent of Bernini's Apollo and Daphne (1622-4; Rome, Gal. Borghese), a design at once sensuous, energetic and psychologically intimate. This seated, drunken satyr tips backwards as the advancing bacchante embraces him, his precarious posture recalling the Barberini Faun (Munich, Glyp.).Clodion also created allegorical works, most notably a terracotta model for a monument to the Balloon Ascent of the Physicians Charles and Robert (h. 1105 mm; New York, Met.), the theme of a royal competition of 1784, an unrealized project intended for the Tuileries Gardens. This is composed of a sphere, representing the balloon, resting on a half-column, a severity of geometric form like that of the visionary architecture of Etienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Over these crisp solids moves a low-relief layer of billowing smoke clouds rising from fires stoked for hot air by a throng of putti. The putti are in very high relief, their joyous movements leading to the focal figure of a trumpeting Fame atop the sphere. For the spectators of 1783 the fateful meaning of the balloon ascent was that the seemingly limitless power of scientific principle now overshadowed the waning capacities of the absolute monarchy. This level of meaning is perhaps implicit in Clodion's symbolic contrast of the great looming sphere of Science (a kind of orb of dominion) with the frail figure of Fame, the latter an allegory associated with rulership at least since Roman times. 3. Later career.Clodion spent the years c. 1793-8 in Nancy away from the hazards of Revolutionary Paris. After his return the tone of his work became cool and restrained, as in the elegant embrace of the terracotta group Zephyrus and Flora (h. 527 mm, 1799; New York, Frick). Their entwined, mannerist dance recalls the palpably slow movement of Giambologna's Rape of a Sabine (1582; Florence, Loggia Lanzi). In Bacchus and Ariadne (h. 539 mm, 1798; Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A.) Clodion imbued the god of wine with an ennobling, Neo-classical quotation from the stance of the well-known Borghese Mars, its long diagonal line ordering this mythological abduction. Nobler still, Scene from the Deluge (h. 533 mm, 1800; Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.) shows a vigorous, bearded man carrying across his shoulders the limp body of a drowned youth. Essentially a pastiche of several similarly burdened figures in Michelangelo's Deluge fresco in the Sistine Chapel, this late design also reflects a preference for longer flowing lines, like those in the engravings of John Flaxman. As a moral statement suited to the tenor of the strife-ridden Napoleonic era, and as a winner of a first-class medal at the Salon of 1801, Scene from the Deluge attains the greatest possible distance from the titillation and caprice of many of Clodion's earlier terracottas. During the Empire period, Clodion worked mainly as a highly placed artisan, executing the academic concepts of others. He carved a marble relief after a design by C. Meynier, Napoleon's Entry into Munich (2.00×3.75 m, 1805-6), for the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris. He modelled some 15 of the total of 75 relief panels designed by P.N. Bergeret for the Colonne de la Grande Armée (1807-9) on the Place Vendôme; he was also a member of a team of artists charged in 1807 to create a model for the standing figure of Napoleon intended to crown the columnMuseumsTerracotta: AGEN, MBA. BAYONNE, Mus. Bonnat: Poesie and Music, Bas-relief. BESANÇON, MBA: Mon. à Fifi, Modell (Magazin des MN de la Renaiss. in Ecouen). BLERANCOURT, MN de la Coopération franco-amér.: Projet pour le revers de la méd. Libertas Amer., Medaillon. BOSTON/Mass., MFA: Vasenpaar, Dekor: spielende Kinder. CAMBRIDGE/Mass., Fogg AM: Jeune fille portant un enfant sur son épaule gauche; Jeune fille portant son enfant sur son épaule droite, Statuetten. CHERBOURG, Mus. Thomas Henry. CINCINNATI/Ohio, AM. CLEVELAND/Ohio, Mus. of Art: Satyre enfant courant avec un hibou; Satyresse enfant courant avec un nid; Jeune fille présentant des guirlandes de roses sur un plateau, alles Statuetten. DETROIT/Mich., Inst. of Arts: Satyre tenant une bacchante qui tient par la main un satyre enfant, Gruppe. FORT WORTH/Tex., Kimbell AM. KOPENHAGEN, Statens Mus. for Kunst. LONDON, V;A: Nymphe couronnée par des Amours; Enlèvement de Psyché, Gruppen. - Sir Brinsley Ford Coll. LOS ANGELES, County Mus. of Art. - J.Paul Getty Mus.: L'Offrande à Priape, Gruppe. LUGANO, Thyssen-Slg: Jeune fille und Jeune homme courant, entourés par des amours, Gruppen. NANCY, Mus. hist. lorrain: Mon. à Ninette, Modell; Leda und der Schwan, Gruppe. - MBA: L'Offrande à l'Amour, Basrelief. NEW YORK, Arthur M.Sackler Found.: Jeune femme tenant un vase et une cassolette sur un plateau; Jeune femme tenant une couronne de fleurs sur un plateau, Statuetten. - Metrop. Mus.: Music; Archit., Basreliefs; Bacchant debout présentant une grappe de raisin à une bacchante, avec un enfant qui lève les bras; Bacchante brandissant un thyrse s'appuyant sur l'épaule d'un satyre, avec satyre enfant; Satyre enlacant une bacchante qui lui propose du vin, Gruppen. - Oscar de la Renta Coll. - Frick Coll. OTTAWA, NG of Canada. PARIS, Mus. Cognacq-Jay: Mon. à un chien, Modell; Bacchante courant, Statuette. - Louvre: Egyptienne au naos, Statuette. - Petit Pal.: Sieg der Ariadne, Basrelief. - Mus. Nissim de Camondo: Jeunes bacchantes, zwei Büsten. PASADENA/Calif., Norton Simon Mus. PITTSBURGH/Pa., Carnegie Mus. of Art. SAN MARINO/Calif., Huntington Libr., Art Coll. and Botanical Gardens: Jeune femme jouant avec un enfant qu'elle soulève devant elle et qui la regarde; Jeune femme portant devant elle un enfant dans ses bras, Statuetten. STOCKHOLM, NM. ST.PETERSBURG, Ermitage: Vasenpaar mit Dekor spielender Kinder; Jeune fille tenant une corbeille de fruits sous son bras droit et un enfant sous son bras gauche, Statuette. TOLEDO/Ohio, Mus. of Art: La Bascule, Gruppe. WADDESDON MANOR, Nat. Trust: Bacchante courant tenant sur son épaule gauche un thyrse chargé de raisin, et de sa main droite des grelots attachés à un bâton; Bacchant courant avec deux thyrses sur les épaules et deux canards suspendus, Statuetten; Bacchant portant un vase, accompagné d'une bacchante avec un tambour de basque rempli de fruits sur la tête et tenant un enfant par la main, Gruppe. WASHINGTON/D.C., NG of Art. - weitere Arbeiten: CHICAGO, Art Inst. LONDON, V;A. MAISONS-LAFFITTE, Mus. du Château. NANCY, MBA. - Mus. hist. lorrain. NEW YORK, Metrop. Mus. PARIS, Louvre. - MAD. - Pal. du Luxembourg, Senat. - Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. - Colonne de la Grande Armée. PHILADELPHIA/Pa., Mus. of Art. ROUEN, Kathedrale. SEMUR-EN-AUXOIS, Mus. Dumont. SEVRES, MN de Céramique. TOLEDO/Ohio, Mus. of Art. VERSAILLES, Château. WASHINGTON/D.C., NG of Art. BibliographyThB7, 1912 (Lit.). Lami II, 1911; DA VII, 1996 (Lit.). - L.A. Dingé, Not. nécrologique sur C., P. [ca. 1814]; J.-J. Guiffrey, GBA 8:1892, 478-495; 9:1893, 164, 176, 392-417; A.Jacquot, Réunion des Soc. des BA 21:1897, 667-739; H.Stein, BSHAF 1911, 182-199; J.-J. Guiffrey, AAF, nouv. pér., 6:1912, 210-244 (Nachlaß-Inv.); T.Hodgkinson, NG of Canada bull. 1974(24)13-21; A.L. Poulet, C. terracottas in North Amer. coll. (K Frick Coll.), N.Y. 1984; id., The Art Inst. of Chicago, Mus. stud. 15:1989(2)138-153, 177-180; id., J.of the MFA, Boston 1991(3)51-76 (Skulpt. zur Sintflut); G.Scherf, Rev. de l'art 1991(91)47-59; A.L. Poulet/id., C. (K Louvre), P. 1992; C. et la sculpt. franc. de la fin du XVIIIe s., actes du colloque, P. 1993; G.Scherf, Rev. du Louvre 1993(3)54-60 (Homère mordu par les chiens); id., Pays lorrain 1993(3)139-146 (Leda); id., Péristyles (Nancy) 1994(4)19-24 (Offrande à l'Amour). Other L.-A. Dingé: Notice nécrologique sur M. Clodion (Paris, 1814) H. Thirion: Les Adam et Clodion (Paris, 1885) J.-J. Guiffrey: 'Le Sculpteur Claude Michel, dit Clodion (1738-1814)', Gaz. B.-A., n. s. 2, viii (1892), pp. 478-95; ix (1893), pp. 164-76, 392-417 G. Varenne: 'Clodion à Nancy: Ses années d'enfance; Sa maison et son atelier de 1793 à 1798', Rev. Lorraine Ill., 3 (1913), pp. 39-57 'Clodion', Conn. A., xl (1955), pp. 72-7 Hodgkinson: The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue, iv (New York, 1970) James A. Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Sculpture (Fribourg, 1970) "Houdon and Clodion", Apollo, xciii (1971), pp. 397-9 W. Kalnein and M. Levey: Art and Architecture of the Eighteenth Century in France, Pelican Hist. A. (Harmondsworth, 1972) F. Souchal: 'L'Inventaire après décès du sculpteur Lambert-Sigisbert Adam', Bull. Soc. Hist. A. Fr. (1973), pp. 186, 190 T. Hodgkinson: 'A Clodion Statuette in the National Gallery of Canada', N.G. Canada Bull., xxiv (1974), pp. 13-21 C. Avery: Fingerprints of the Artist: European Terracotta Sculptures from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Cambridge, MA, 1980) Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre: Clodion et la sculpture française de la fin du XVIIIe siècle: Paris, 1982 Clodion Terracottas in North American Collections (exh. cat. by A. L. Poulet, New York, Frick, 1984); review by A. B. Weinshenker: in A. Bull., lxiv (1984), p.383-5 I. Wardropper: 'Adam to Clodion: Four French Terracotta Sculptures', Mus. Stud., xi (1984), pp. 22-37 Clodion, 1738-1814 (exh. cat. by A. L. Poulet and G. Scherf, Paris, Louvre, 1992) 2010-11-15 08:21:31 GMT 8 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/7-Chapu,-Henri-Michel-Antoine Chapu, Henri-Michel-AntoineArtist name Chapu, Henri-Michel-Antoine ThB name: Chapu, Henri Sex: m Artist occupation: sculptor; medalist Geographical data: France; Italy; Denmark State: France; Italy; Denmark Date of birth: 1833.09.29 Place of birth: Le Mée-sur-Seine (Seine-et-Marne) Date of death: 1891.04.21 Place of death: Paris Place(s) cited: Paris; Rom; Kopenhagen (b Le Mee-sur-Seine, Seine-et-Marne, 23 Sept 1833; d Paris, 21 April 1891). French sculptor. His father, a coachman, sent him to the Petite Ecole (Ecole Gratuite de Dessin), Paris, to have him trained as a tapestry-maker. In 1849 his successes led him to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, where he became a pupil of James Pradier, Francois-Joseph Duret and Leon Cogniet. In 1855 he won the Prix de Rome for sculpture with the relief Cleobis and Biton (plaster, untraced; sketch model, Le Mee-sur-Seine, Mus. Chapu); he completed his education at the Academie de France in Rome, remaining there until 1861. During this time he lived as a virtual recluse, his only friend being the painter Leon Bonnat. The bas-relief Christ with Angels (plaster, 1857; Le Mee-sur-Seine, Mus. Chapu), which was the first of the works he was required to send for judgement at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, was strongly criticized by Duret; it now appears to be one of the most sensitive sculptures of a classicizing artist, whose other Roman works included a copy of the antique Spinario (marble, 1858; Paris, Ecole N. Sup. Beaux Arts) and the much-exhibited statue of Mercury Inventing the Caduceus (marble, 1862--3; Paris, Mus. d'Orsay).The Prix de Rome made Chapu eligible, on his return to France, to receive official commissions. His sculptures made to decorate public buildings included statues representing the City of Beauvais (stone, 1862; Paris, Gare du Nord), Mechanical Art (stone, 1865; Paris, Tribunal de Commerce) and Cantata (stone, 1866; Paris, Opera), as well as a relief representing Literature (stone, 1866; Paris, Sorbonne) and many other works of a similar character. He received many private commissions for the sculptural decoration of private residences, including the Hotel Sauvage (1862--3), the Hotel Sedille (c. 1863) and the chateau of Chantilly, for which he carved statues of Pluto and Proserpina (marble, 1884). He also contributed to the decoration of new commercial buildings, such as the department store Grands Magasins du Printemps, Paris, for which he made statues representing the Seasons (stone, 1882; plaster models, Le Mee-sur-Seine, Mus. Chapu).Among Chapu's religious works is the marble group of SS Germain and Genevieve (1874--89; Arras Cathedral), intended for the Pantheon, Paris; while among his numerous fine funerary monuments are the Effigy of the Duchess of Nemours (1881--3; Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery), the elaborate and ambitious tomb of Mgr Dupanloup (marble, 1887; Orleans Cathedral) and the moving and lifelike effigy of Helene, Duchesse d'Orleans (1885; Dreux, Orleans Chapel). He was also a superb portrait sculptor, producing large numbers of animated and characterful busts, among them that of Alexandre Dumas the Elder (marble, 1876; Paris, Comedie Francaise), one of the best-known images of the writer, and numerous bronze medallion portraits (58 in the Mus. d'Orsay, Paris), in the tradition of David d'Angers; these include the painters Leon Bonnat (1860), Victor Schnetz (1861) and Jean-Francois Millet (1884).Chapu was perhaps most celebrated in his time for the classicizing and slightly sentimental female allegorical statues on his funerary monuments, such as Youth on the monument to Henri Regnault and the pupils of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts killed in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870--71 (marble, 1876; Paris, Ecole B.-A.), and Truth on the monument to Gustave Flaubert (marble, 1890; Rouen, Mus. B.-A.); these statues were widely reproduced in a variety of materials. His best-known work is the simple and naturalistic seated statue of Joan of Arc at Domremy (plaster, Salon 1870, e.g. Rome, Villa Medici and Le Mee-sur-Seine, Mus. Chapu; bronze, Copenhagen, Oster Anlaeg Park; marble, 1872,), which portrays the heroine as a peasant girl at prayer.In 1867 Chapu was made a chevalier of the Legion d'honneur, in recognition of his works for the Exposition Universelle of that year. In 1880 he was elected to the Academie des Beaux-Arts. The sculptor and later his widow presented the contents of his studio to the municipality of Le Mee-sur-Seine, where they were housed in a building paid for by public subscription. In 1977 they were rehoused in a new building. Large collections of his drawings are in the Musee du Louvre, Paris, and the Musee de Melun in Melun.WORKS LE MEE-SUR-SEINE/Seine-et-Marne, Mus. C.: der größte Teil der Gipsmodelle. MELUN, Mus.: Zchngn. PARIS, Louvre: 103 Zchngn. - Orsay: bed. Bestand an Zchngn. ARTIST´S WRITINGS Briefe aus Rom an die Eltern im Mus. de Melun. BIBLIOGRAPHY ThB6, 1912 (Lit.). Lami I, 1914 (WV, Lit.); DBF VIII, 1959; Bénézit II, 1976; Kjellberg, 1987. - C. Les chefs-d'oeuvre d'art au Luxembourg, P. 1881, 126 ss.; O.Fidière, C., sa vie et son oeuvre, P. 1894; H.Jouin, Lettres inédites d'artistes franç. du XIXe s., NAAF 1900; Cat. du Mus. C. au Mée, Melun 1904; AAF, Doc., 5:1911, 330 ss.; GBA (table); La méd. en France de Ponscarme à la fin de la Belle Epoque (K Hôtel de la Monnaie), P. 1967; A.-C. Lussiez, Une oeuvre de C. pour le décor sculpté de la façade de l'Opéra, in: 100e congr. nat. des soc. savantes (Paris 1975), P. 1978, 323-330; H.C. au Mée-sur-Seine (K), Le Mée-sur-Seine 1977; Cat. gén. ill. de la Monnaie de Paris (K), III, P. 1977, 80; A.Le Normand, Une bonbonnière d'artiste, Mon. hist. 102:1979(April)66-69; A.Pingeot, Le Flaubert et le Balzac de C., Rev. du Louvre 29:1979(1)35-43; De Carpeaux à Matisse (K Wander-Ausst. Calais u.a.), Lille 1982; Dessins et sculpt. de C. (K Résidence des personnes âgées), Le Mée-sur-Seine 1983; Cat. sommaire ill. des sculpt. du Mus. d'Orsay, P. 1986; La sculpt. franç. au XIXe s. (K Grand Pal.), P. 1986; A.Le Normand-Romain, H.C. Crayon, encre et terre cuite, Rev. du Louvre 41:1991(4)47-62; A.-C. Lussiez, H.C. Sculpt., esquisses et dessins. Les acquisitions récentes des Mus. de Melun et du Mée-sur-Seine, ibid. 63-70; Centenaire H.C. (K Mus. H.C. u.a.), Le Mée-sur-Seine 1991; A.Le Normand-Romain, Mém. de marbre. La sculpt. funéraire en France 1804-1914, P. 1995. - Paris, Arch. de la Monnaie: Sér. P1. - Mitt. J.-M. Darnis, Paris.       2010-11-15 08:21:08 GMT 7 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/6-Caffiéri,-Jacques Caffiéri, JacquesJacques Caffiéri(b Paris, 25 Aug 1678; d Paris, 23 Nov 1755). Bronze-caster, sculptor and designer, son of (1) Philippe Caffiéri (i). He was the nephew of Charles Le Brun and had two sons by his marriage to Marie-Anne Rousseau, (3) Philippe Caffiéri (ii) and (4) Jean-Jacques Caffiéri. Jacques became one of the most prominent bronzeworkers in the reign of Louis XV. A member of the Académie de Saint-Luc, Paris, he became a master bronze-caster and chaser in Paris before 1715 and, on an unknown earlier date, received the title of Sculpteur et Ciseleur Ordinaire des Bâtiments du Roi. It is probable that one of his teachers was Domenico Cucci, who was Ebéniste et Fondeur du Roi and with whom the Caffiéri family was closely linked. Jacques also received training in sculpture, as evidenced by his busts of Baron de Besenval (1735) and Baron de Brunstadt (1737). It was in the decorative arts, however, that he achieved his reputation.In 1740 his wife bought the warrant of Marchande Doreuse Privilégiée du Roi suivant la Cour, which allowed them to continue the processes of bronze-casting and gilding, which would normally have been performed by separate businesses, within the same workshop. In 1747 his son Philippe Caffiéri (ii) joined him as an associate. Jacques had clients in the city of Paris and at court, including the royal family. He also became Maître Sculpteur et Dessinateur des Vaisseaux du Roi. Of his bronzework only small, decorative pieces are extant. He is known to have made gilt-bronze mantelpieces (destr.) for four chimney-pieces commissioned for the château of Versailles in 1747, but only those from the Dauphin's Bedchamber survive. Similarly, the numerous bronze ornaments for coaches, including those commissioned by the court, are lost. Of his work for cabinetmakers, only the bronzes for the commode (1739; London, Wallace; for illustration see COMMODE) by Antoine-Robert Gaudreaus for Louis XV are extant, although those for the desk (Baron Edmond de Rothschild priv. col.) for the Duc de Choiseul have also been attributed to him.Jacques Caffiéri specialized in the Louis XV style. Animals and fantastic beasts, figures of gods and heroes inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses and genre subjects, all combined with elaborate curves that are emphasized by leafy, flowered branches, typical of the asymmetrical Louis XV style, feature prominently in his earlier works. Examples with this type of decoration include the Diana and Apollo clocks (Pushkin, Pal.-Mus.; Duke of Buccleuch, priv. col.); the Diana and Endymion cartel-clock (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.); Queen Marie Leczinska's candelabra (Paris, Louvre); wall-lights (Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.) made for the Infanta Elizabeth, Louis XV's daughter (1727-59); fire-dogs decorated with hunters (Rome, Pal. Quirinale); and the chandeliers (Paris, Bib. Mazarine) of the Marquise de Pompadour, which include putti playing among bouquets of roses, as well as representations of castles similar to those that feature on the Marquise's coat of arms. Caffiéri's later works are in the symmetrical version of the Louis XV style, for example the chandelier (1751; London, Wallace) from the collection of the dukes of Parma and the Passament astronomical clock (1753; Versailles, Château) for Louis XV.   2010-11-15 08:20:46 GMT 6 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/5-Isidore-Jules-Bonheur Isidore Jules BonheurSex: m Artist occupation: sculptor; painter Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1827.05.15 Place of birth: Bordeaux Date of death: 1901 Place(s) cited: Paris Book location: AKL XII, 1996, 537   Isidore Jules Bonheur Isidore Jules Bonheur was born on May 15, 1827, the third child of Raymond Bonheur and brother of Rosa Bonheur the famous sculptor and painter. Like the other members of his family he showed great aptitude for drawing and modeling from an early age and was taught by his father. Bonheur made his debut at the Salon in 1848 with his African Horseman attacked by a Lion and enrolled in the Salon des Beaux-Arts in 1849. He won medals in 1865 and 1869 and won the coveted Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889. He was awarded Legion d'Honneur in 1895. The two lions crouched in stone which flank the stairs of the Palais de Justice in Paris are reminders of the power and realism of Bonheur. He excelled in realistically capturing the attitudes and spontaneous movements of animals and mankind - a mare caressing her colt, a lion playing with it's young, a polo player. The founder Hippolyte Peyrol, who married Isidore's younger sister Juliette Bonheur, cast the majority of his works and these bronzes are of exceptionally fine quality. Bonheur's specialization in small figures and animal groups led him to become part of the animal sculptors of the late 19th Century known as 'Les Animaliers'. Although his studies of other animals are of a very high quality he will always be revered for his studies of the horse, which capture the quintessential spirit of the animal combined with an almost 'humanized' characteristic. WORKS FONTAINEBLEAU: Mon. à Rosa Bonheur 1901. - Mus. Nat. du Château. PARIS, Mus. d'Orsay. - Pal. de Justice. PERIGUEUX, Mus. WARSCHAU, Muz. Narodowe EXHIBITIONS Paris: 1848-99 Salon; 1855, '89 Welt-Ausst.; 1883 Expos. Nat. / 1875, '76 London, RA / 1973 Lausanne, Gal. des arts décoratifs: Les animaliers du 19e s. BIBLIOGRAPHY ThB IV, 1910. Bellier/Auvray I, 1882; Suppliment., 1887; Graves, RA I, 1905; DictNatContemp I, 1906; Graves, LE II, 1913; Lami I, 1914; Grant, Sculptors, 1953; DBF VI, 1954; Bénézit II, 1976; Mackay, 1977; Kjellberg, 1987. - L.Dussieux, Les artistes franç. à l'étranger, P. 1876, 388; J.Horswell, Bronze sculpt. of "Les animaliers", Clopton 1971, 201-216, 310, 333 s.; J.Mackay, The animaliers, Lo. 1973, 7, 46 s., 54 s., 145 s.; Schurr III, 1976; Renard, 1985, 265. - Mitt. L.Salvagnini, Antela.  2010-11-15 08:20:25 GMT 5 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/4-Besarel,-Valentino Besarel, ValentinoProper name: Panciera, Valentino Cited Artist: Besarel, Catarina; Besarel, Giovanni Battista; Besarel, Francesco; Sex: Panciera, Catarina; Panciera, Giovanni Battista Sex: mArtist occupation: sculptor; carver Geographical data: Italy State: Italy Date of birth: 1829.07.29 Place of birth: Astragal di Zoldo Date of death: 1902.12.10 Place of death: Venice Place(s) cited: Venice; Rome Son of the woodcarver and decorator Giovanni Battista Besarel. He attended the Academy des Beaux-Arts the starting from 1840 with Antonio Federici. Afterwards actively worked with his father (the 1849 the entire inner decoration of the Archidiaconal Church in Agordo). Studied from 1849-52 at the Academia des Beaux Arts in Venice, with Michelangelo Grigoletti and Luigi Ferrari (on recommendation of Giuseppe Segusini and Giovanni Demin). Returned after Astragal, 1858 and entered into marriage with Maria Fontanella de'Pellegrini, with whom they had 6 children. In 1870 they returned to Venice and created of a very productive workshop, in which also its brother Francesco cooperated. His daughter Catarina was likewise a sculptor . He took part in many natioanl and international exhibitions (1861 Florenz, 1878 Paris, 1881 Milan, 1884 turin). Works are also seen in marble, however wood with it also high-quality. e.g. play table for queen Margherita of Savoyen, 1883; 12 armchair, given by king Umberto I for the attendance of emperor Wilhelm I. in order, 1888; Desk for the rear. Querini Stampalia in Venice, 1875). His sculpture is immaculate, but without internal tension. He animated and influenced local traditions such as the work of Andrea Brustolon. WORKS Marble: BELLUNO, Cimitero: Grabmäler Segusini und Zannini, 1868. CONSELVE/ Padua, Chiesa Arcipetrale: 4 Evangelisten, Christus, hl. Petrus, hl. Paulus, 2 Engel, 1887. ESTE, S. Maria delle Grazie, Sanctuary: Madonna, hl. Elisabeth, hl. Daniel, hl. John. Baptist, 1870. - Work in Wood: AGORDO, Chiesa Archidiaconal: 4 Prophet, 1855-57, Rosenkranzmadonna, 1868. BELLUNO, Dom: 4 Evangelisten, um 1858. CAMPO SOMMARIVA, Chiesa d'Addolorata: Altar der Schmerzensmutter, um 1860. DONT DI ZOLDO, Pfarrk. Denkmal A. Brustolon , 1878. FUSINE DI ZOLDO, Pfarrk. Hl. Antonius, 1880. LA VALLE / Agordo, Pfarrk. High altar, 1885. PIEVE DI CADORE, Pal. Com.: Cassettedeck (with 32 Portrait Busts). PIEVE DI ZOLDO, Chiesa Arcipretale: Alter of Rosewood Madonna; Himmelfahrt Mariä, 1897. VIGO DI CADORE, Pfarrk. Pala del Gesù, 1866. - Weitere Work: BELLUNO, S. Rocco. CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, S. Pietro ai Volti. DOLO, S. Rocco, FUSINE DI ZOLDO. GRADISCA DI SEDEGLIANO. GUSSAGO DI S.MICHELE AL TAGLIAMENTO. MONTENARS. OSPITALE DI CADORE. PORTOGRUARO, Dom. PREGANZIOL, S. Urbano. SOLIGHETTO. TISER DI AGORDO. TOPPO. UDINE, Dom. - S. Cristoforo. - Tempio Ossario. VEDANA. VESCOVANA. BIBLIOGRAPHY Thieme-Becker III, 1909 G. Biasuz, V. Panciera B., Treviso 1928; Cat. Della Mostra dell'arte bellunese dell'Ottocento, Belluno 1949; L. Da Rin, A cinquant'anni della morte di V. Panciera-B. Zoldo 1952; G. Fabbiani, Chiese del Cadore, Belluno 1954; G. Biasuz / M.Buttignon, Andrea Brustolon, Padova 1969; G. De Bortoli / A. Moro / F. Vizzutti, Belluno storia, archit., arte, Belluno 1984; G. Biasuz /M. De Bona, Dolomiti 7:1984(5)25-34; G. Bergamini, in: S.Michêl al Tiliment, Udine 1985, 337 s.; E. Arnoldo, Le chiese di Zoldo, Belluno 1985; G. Angelini /A. Alpago-Novello / F.Vizzutti, La pieve di S. Floriano in Zoldo, Belluno 1987; G. Angelini / E.Cason, Prime opere dello scultore V. B., Arch. stor. di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore 61:1990(270)3-11. B. Francesco; Giovanni Battista; Valentino). Panzetta, 1989. 2010-11-15 08:20:03 GMT 4 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/3-Besarel,-Valentino Besarel, ValentinoProper name: Panciera, Valentino Cited Artist: Besarel, Catarina; Besarel, Giovanni Battista; Besarel, Francesco; Sex: Panciera, Catarina; Panciera, Giovanni Battista Sex: mArtist occupation: sculptor; carver Geographical data: Italy State: Italy Date of birth: 1829.07.29 Place of birth: Astragal di Zoldo Date of death: 1902.12.10 Place of death: Venice Place(s) cited: Venice; Rome Son of the woodcarver and decorator Giovanni Battista Besarel. He attended the Academy des Beaux-Arts the starting from 1840 with Antonio Federici. Afterwards actively worked with his father (the 1849 the entire inner decoration of the Archidiaconal Church in Agordo). Studied from 1849-52 at the Academia des Beaux Arts in Venice, with Michelangelo Grigoletti and Luigi Ferrari (on recommendation of Giuseppe Segusini and Giovanni Demin). Returned after Astragal, 1858 and entered into marriage with Maria Fontanella de'Pellegrini, with whom they had 6 children. In 1870 they returned to Venice and created of a very productive workshop, in which also its brother Francesco cooperated. His daughter Catarina was likewise a sculptor . He took part in many natioanl and international exhibitions (1861 Florenz, 1878 Paris, 1881 Milan, 1884 turin). Works are also seen in marble, however wood with it also high-quality. e.g. play table for queen Margherita of Savoyen, 1883; 12 armchair, given by king Umberto I for the attendance of emperor Wilhelm I. in order, 1888; Desk for the rear. Querini Stampalia in Venice, 1875). His sculpture is immaculate, but without internal tension. He animated and influenced local traditions such as the work of Andrea Brustolon. WORKS Marble: BELLUNO, Cimitero: Grabmäler Segusini und Zannini, 1868. CONSELVE/ Padua, Chiesa Arcipetrale: 4 Evangelisten, Christus, hl. Petrus, hl. Paulus, 2 Engel, 1887. ESTE, S. Maria delle Grazie, Sanctuary: Madonna, hl. Elisabeth, hl. Daniel, hl. John. Baptist, 1870. - Work in Wood: AGORDO, Chiesa Archidiaconal: 4 Prophet, 1855-57, Rosenkranzmadonna, 1868. BELLUNO, Dom: 4 Evangelisten, um 1858. CAMPO SOMMARIVA, Chiesa d'Addolorata: Altar der Schmerzensmutter, um 1860. DONT DI ZOLDO, Pfarrk. Denkmal A. Brustolon , 1878. FUSINE DI ZOLDO, Pfarrk. Hl. Antonius, 1880. LA VALLE / Agordo, Pfarrk. High altar, 1885. PIEVE DI CADORE, Pal. Com.: Cassettedeck (with 32 Portrait Busts). PIEVE DI ZOLDO, Chiesa Arcipretale: Alter of Rosewood Madonna; Himmelfahrt Mariä, 1897. VIGO DI CADORE, Pfarrk. Pala del Gesù, 1866. - Weitere Work: BELLUNO, S. Rocco. CIVIDALE DEL FRIULI, S. Pietro ai Volti. DOLO, S. Rocco, FUSINE DI ZOLDO. GRADISCA DI SEDEGLIANO. GUSSAGO DI S.MICHELE AL TAGLIAMENTO. MONTENARS. OSPITALE DI CADORE. PORTOGRUARO, Dom. PREGANZIOL, S. Urbano. SOLIGHETTO. TISER DI AGORDO. TOPPO. UDINE, Dom. - S. Cristoforo. - Tempio Ossario. VEDANA. VESCOVANA. BIBLIOGRAPHY Thieme-Becker III, 1909 G. Biasuz, V. Panciera B., Treviso 1928; Cat. Della Mostra dell'arte bellunese dell'Ottocento, Belluno 1949; L. Da Rin, A cinquant'anni della morte di V. Panciera-B. Zoldo 1952; G. Fabbiani, Chiese del Cadore, Belluno 1954; G. Biasuz / M.Buttignon, Andrea Brustolon, Padova 1969; G. De Bortoli / A. Moro / F. Vizzutti, Belluno storia, archit., arte, Belluno 1984; G. Biasuz /M. De Bona, Dolomiti 7:1984(5)25-34; G. Bergamini, in: S.Michêl al Tiliment, Udine 1985, 337 s.; E. Arnoldo, Le chiese di Zoldo, Belluno 1985; G. Angelini /A. Alpago-Novello / F.Vizzutti, La pieve di S. Floriano in Zoldo, Belluno 1987; G. Angelini / E.Cason, Prime opere dello scultore V. B., Arch. stor. di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore 61:1990(270)3-11. B. Francesco; Giovanni Battista; Valentino). Panzetta, 1989. 2010-11-15 08:19:39 GMT 3 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/2-Antoine-Louis-Barye Antoine-Louis BaryeArtist name Barye, Antoine-Louis Cited Artist: Bicunais, Pierre Sex: M Artist occupation: Sculptor; painter; founder Geographical data: France State: France Date of birth: 1795.09.24 Place of birth: Paris Date of death: 1875.06.25 Place of death: Paris Place(s) cited: Paris   French sculptor, painter and printmaker. Barye was a realist who dared to present romantically humanized animals as the protagonists of his sculpture. Although he was a successful monumental sculptor, he also created a considerable body of small-scale works and often made multiple casts of his small bronze designs, marketing them for a middle-class public through a partnership, Barye & Cie. His interest in animal subjects is also reflected in his many watercolors. He thus challenged several fundamental values of the Parisian art world: the entrenched notion of a hierarchy of subject-matter in art, wherein animals ranked very low; the view that small-scale sculpture was intrinsically inferior to life-size or monumental work; and the idea that only a unique example of a sculptor's design could embody the highest level of his vision and craft. As a result of his Romantic notion of sculpture, he won few monumental commissions and endured near poverty for many years. 1. Training and early work, to c 1830.2. Mature work, c 1830 and after. 1. Training and early work, to c 1830. The son of a goldsmith from Lyon, Barye learnt his father's craft at an early age and retained some of its values as a mature artist. At the age of 13 he worked for the military engraver Fourier. Soon after he worked in the prestigious workshop of Martin-Guillaume Biennais, goldsmith to Napoleon. In 1816 he studied with the Neo-classical sculptor François-Joseph Bosio; Barye also studied painting briefly with the Romantic history painter Antoine-Jean Gros. As a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1818-23), Barye repeatedly failed to win the Prix de Rome. Nonetheless his experiences there deepened his commitment to the classical tradition and acquainted him with a very broad spectrum of artistic sources. He also read works on art theory and archaeology by E.M. Falconet, Quatremère de Quincy and Emeric-David and studied the engravings of John Flaxman. He studied animal anatomy diligently; reading scholarly essays by the naturalists François Marie Daudin and Georges Cuvier. He made drawings after zoological displays in the Musée d'Anatomie Comparée and after dissections performed at the Jardin des Plantes. He also made a close study of ancient sculptures of animals. Barye's earliest works, dated c. 1819 to c. 1830, were executed in three divergent styles: painterly, naturalist and hieratic. These are epitomized respectively by his delicately modeled medallion relief Milo of Crotona Devoured by a Lion (1819; Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery), which echoes Pierre Puget's marble group of the same title (1671-82; Paris, Louvre), the humorous trompe l'oeil piece Turtle on a Base and the Stork on a Turtle (both Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery), based on an ancient prototype engraved by Lorenzo Roccheggiani (fl 1804-17). 2. Mature work, c 1830 and after. (I) Large-scale sculpture.(II) Small bronze works.(III) Paintings and prints. (I) Large-scale sculpture. Barye's style had become more unified by c. 1830, and his images of predators grew larger, more humanized and more dramatic, as in the Tiger Devouring a Gavial Crocodile of the Ganges (bronze, exh. Salon 1831; Paris, Louvre. This exotic, exquisitely detailed and controversial work is an image of evil in the sense of Victor Hugo's notion of the grotesque. Astonishingly, it was characterized by the classical critic and follower of David, Etienne-Jean Delécluze, as 'the strongest and most significant work of the entire Salon'. This unforgettable image, of a sphinx-like tiger slowly biting into the genitalia of a writhing and serpentine gavial, launched Barye's artistic career. Larger but more restrained, Lion Crushing a Serpent (1832; Paris, Louvre) was shown in the Salon of 1833, in its plaster version, and was cast in bronze for Louis-Philippe in time for the Salon of 1836. In recognition of its excellence Barye was named Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur on 1 May 1833. An allegory on two levels, Lion Crushing a Serpent was intended to flatter the King: the lion connotes not only courage, strength and fortitude but also kingship itself as triumphant over the serpent of evil; as a commemoration of the July Revolution of 1830, which had placed Louis-Philippe on the throne, it also represents the lion of Leo, the constellation that 'ruled the heavens' on 27, 28 and 29 July 1830. Indeed, the appellation Lion of the Zodiac occurs in the official documents for Barye's slightly later bronze relief (1835-40s) on the July Column in the Place de la Bastille, Paris. Lion of the Zodiac recalled an ancient marble relief in Rome, engraved by Pietro Bartoli. Remains of the fallen heroes of 1830 were taken to the July Column cenotaph on 18 April 1840.Another monumental work of Barye's maturity is St Clotilde (marble, 1840-43), executed for the church of the Madeleine in Paris. This figure is based on the Roman marble of Julia, daughter of Augustus (Paris, Louvre), and is also reflected in a contemporary portrait by Ingres (e.g. Comtesse d'Haussonville, 1845; New York, Frick). Barye also executed the Seated Lion (bronze, 1847; Paris, Louvre), a companion piece to Lion Crushing a Serpent in a less detailed style, and eight colossal eagle reliefs (1849) for piers of the Jena Bridge over the Seine, which echo an ancient oil-lamp relief engraved by Bartoli. In 1848 Barye was named director of plaster casting and curator of the gallery of plaster casts at the Musée du Louvre. He also taught drawing for natural history in the Ecole Agronomique at Versailles in 1850. The same year he submitted two monumental sculptures to the Salon; he had not exhibited there since 1837, when the jury had rejected his ensemble of nine small sculptures made for the young Ferdinand-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans. Jaguar Devouring a Hare (Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery) is a Romantic animal combat reminiscent of his innovations of c. 1830, while Theseus Combating the Centaur Bienor (Washington, DC, Corcoran Gallery of Art) is an academic piece whose figures recall Giambologna's Hercules and Nessus (1594; Florence, Loggia Lanzi). By pairing these two works at the Salon, Barye aimed to reaffirm his conviction that an image of a predator with its prey, encapsulating his own Romantic vision of nature, was worthy to stand beside an academically sanctioned mythological combat. Around 1851 Barye produced a series of 97 decorative masks in stone for the cornice of the Pont Neuf in Paris; the expressive range and formal variety of facial representations that encompasses the Buddha, Christ and Hercules may be regarded as a virtuoso feat. For the vast new Louvre of Napoleon III, Barye created a stone ensemble of four groups representing Strength, Order, War and Peace (1854-6), which were installed on the façades of the Denon and Richelieu pavilions. He also produced a stone relief, Napoleon I Crowned by History and the Fine Arts (1857), for the façade pediment of the Sully Pavilion. Focal points in the Cour du Carrousel (also known as the Place Napoleon III) of the new Louvre, these works were a pinnacle of Barye's official career, though they were executed in an academic style. Napoleon I Crowned by History and the Fine Arts is a splendid example of imperial propaganda intended to enhance the reign of Napoleon III by recalling the legend and aura of Napoleon I. In 1854 Barye was appointed Master of Zoological Drawing in the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris (where Rodin was among his pupils in 1863), a position he retained until his death. Later monumental works include a classical bronze relief for the Riding Academy façade of the new Louvre, Napoleon III as an Equestrian Roman Emperor (1861; destr. 1870-71), and a tribute to the Emperor's great love of horsemanship. Between 1860 and 1865 Barye executed Napoleon I as an Equestrian Roman Emperor, a freestanding bronze, for the Bonaparte family monument in Ajaccio, Corsica. Around 1869 he carved four feline predators standing over their prey for the Palais de Longchamp at Marseille, not with the nervous intensity of the 1830s but with a hieratic formality and lordly grandeur of mood, qualities appropriate to this late statement of his favorite theme. (II) Small bronze works. Barye often made multiple casts of his designs, marketing them for the homes of middle-class Parisians through Barye & Cie, the partnership he formed in 1845 with the entrepreneur Emile Martin (see doc. in Pivar, 1974). Small bronzes were his greatest love, as the 230 or so designs offered in his last sale catalogue (1865) amply attest. After 1830 his style became subtler, embracing a wide range of moods, compositional types and themes, albeit within the larger framework of a decoratively detailed realism. He produced many animal portraits from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s, such as the exotic Turkish Horse and the poignant Listening Stag of 1838 (both Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery). Predators with prey abound. Hunting scenes may include man, as in Arab Horseman Killing a Lion, or animals only, as in the Wounded Boar (both Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery), which depicts a fallen boar with a spear jutting from its side. Scenes from history include an equestrian group in plaster, Charles VI, Surprised in the Forest of Mans (exh. Salon 1833; Paris, Louvre), showing the assassination attempt that triggered the King's lunacy. Among the literary subjects is Roger Abducting Angelica on the Hippogriff (Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery), from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1532), a scene made famous by Ingres's Roger Rescuing Angelica (1819; Paris, Louvre). Barye depicted equestrian figures from several periods of history: Charles VII (Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery), General Bonaparte (Calais, Museum des Beaux Arts) and Ferdinand Philippe, Duc d'Orléans (Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery). In mood his works encompass the agony of Wolf Caught in a Trap (New York, Brooklyn Museum), the exuberant vigor of African Elephant Running, the playful dreaminess of Bear in its Trough, the excitement of Bear Overthrown by Three Dogs and the powerfully restrained tension of Panther Seizing a Stag (all Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery).Barye's designs range from the delicately atmospheric, painterly effects of Lion Devouring a Doe (1837) to the architectural clarity of Python Killing a Gnu (c. 1834-5; both Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery). The latter was one of nine small bronzes (four animal combats and five hunting scenes) executed for Ferdinand-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, between 1834 and 1838. They were intended as an elaborate decoration for a banqueting table. The Salon jury rejected the models for the ensemble in 1837, and Barye did not again submit works to the Salon until 1850. The Baroque manner of the hunting scenes (all Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery), for instance the Tiger Hunt (1836), contrasts strongly with the classical severity of the tiny reliefs Walking Leopard and Walking Panther (both 1837) and of the freestanding Striding Lion and Striding Tiger (all Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery). A similar restraint is apparent in the Candelabrum Goddesses, the classical Juno and Minerva and the mannerist Nereid (all Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery). An understated tone and a descriptive realism are evident in the late Caucasian Warrior (Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Gallery) and Horseman in Louis XV Costume (Paris, Louvre), both of which were included in Barye's last sale catalogue (1865). (III) Paintings and prints. Barye's extensive oeuvre as a painter of landscapes and of animal subjects linked with his sculpture awaits further study, though Zieseniss produced an introductory catalogue raisonné of 216 animal watercolors in 1956. Noting that an exact chronology for the wholly undated painted oeuvre cannot be established, he nonetheless distinguished an early and late style, contrasting the emphatic detail, exaggerated drama, confused movement and theatrical chiaroscuro effects of the former (e.g. Two Tigers Fighting; Cambridge, MA, Fogg;) with the majestic ease, glowing colour and unity and balance of the latter (e.g. Two Rhinos Resting; Baltimore, MD Inst., Decker Gallery).Barye's tiny watercolors of animals are technically intricate and often combine several media: a single work may show the use of both transparent watercolor and body color as well as pastel chalk, black ink, lead-white highlights, scratched-in lines for whiskers or fur and varnishes of various colors and densities. He developed the surfaces of his watercolors almost as he would patinate a bronze. Most of the subjects of his paintings are the same as those of his small bronze images. These include Tiger Hunt (cf. Benge, 1984,), Turkish Horse (cf. Benge, 1984), Elk Attacked by a Lynx (cf. Benge, 1984,), Bear Attacking a Bull (cf. Benge, 1984,), Lion of the Zodiac; cf. Benge, 1984,) and Seated Lion (priv. col., cf. Benge, 1984). A few creatures, however, appear only in watercolors, for example the Bison, the Rhinoceros and Vultures. The Dead Elephant (cf. Benge, 1984) surely reflects dissection drawings made in the Musée d'Anatomie Comparée. The very precise paintings of serpents must also have been derived from specimen study; by contrast, Barye's Two Tigers (priv. collection.) approaches the moodiness and emotional fullness of Delacroix. Cast shadows and a concern with natural light are rare in Barye's paintings. Some of his landscapes have a central area of bright light, an obvious device seen in Barbizon landscapes by Diaz and Rousseau; others range from the depiction of an elaborate tracery of tree limbs above the antlered head of a stag to the larger and subtler systems of craggy rock-fields whose swirling arabesques echo the outlines of a creature. In Zieseniss's view, Barye regarded his paintings in oil as merely preparatory; he neither exhibited nor offered any for sale, although more than 90 was listed for the posthumous sale of his studio effects, held at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1875. Eleven lithographs and one etching of his animal subjects are illustrated in Delteil. WORKS Museums AJACCIO, Place du Diamant: Napoléon Ier en empereur romain, Reiterstandbild, Bronze, eingeweiht 15.5.1865. MARSEILLE, Eingang Jardin du Longchamp: Lion terrassant un mouflon; Tigre terrassant une biche; Lion et sanglier; Tigre et gazelle, Tiger group, Stein, 1869. PARIS, Eglise de la Madeleine: Ste Clothilde, Marmor, 1835-42. - Pal. du Louvre, Porte des Lions: deux Lionus assis, Bronze, 1847/48, 1867, Gipsmodell 1847 Mus. d'Orsay. - Pavillon Denon et Richelieu (Cour du Carrousel): La Force protégeant le travail; L'Ordre comprimant les pervers; La Guerre; La Paix, allegor. Gruppen, Stein (Gipsmodelle 1854/55 im Mus. d'Orsay). - Pavillon d'Horloge: Napoléon dominant l'Histoire et les Arts, Giebelrelief, Stein, 1855-57. - Guichet du Carrousel (Seine-Seite): Le Flot; La Rivière (ehem. das bronzene Giebelrelief "Napoleon III á cheval ..." flankierend), Stein. - Place de la Bastille: Julisäule (Piedestal): Lion passant, Relief, Bronze, eingeweiht 29.7.1840. - Werke im Mus.: BALTIMORE, Walters Art Gall.: u.a. 5 Jagdgruppen vom Tafelaufsatz des Herzogs von Orléans, Bronze, 1834-38. DUNKERQUE, Mus. des BA: Tigre dévorant un gavial (Salon 1831), Bronze casting H.Genon 1834. LE PUY-EN-VELAY, Mus.: Lapith et centaure (Salon 1850/51), Bronzeguß 1852. LISIEUX, Mus. municipal: Lion au serpent, Gipsmodell, sign. "Barye 1832" (Salon 1833). NEW YORK, Metrop. Mus.: Lion au serpent (Salon 1833), Gips. PARIS, Louvre: u.a. Tigre dévorant un crocodile (Salon 1831), H.Genon 1832; Lion au serpent (Salon 1833), Bronzecasting H.Genon 1835; Jaguar et lièvre, Gipsmodell (Salon 1850/51); Jaguar et lièvre, Masterbronze, Bronzecast 1852 (Salon 1852, Expos. univ. 1855). Extensive examples of small work. Barye's work is in various Museums in Europe and the USA . BAYONNE, Mus. Bonnat. BERLIN, Nat.-Gal. BORDEAUX, Mus. BROOKLYN, Mus. CALAIS, Mus. CAMBRIDGE, Fogg Art Mus. LYON, Mus.des BA. MONTPELLIER, Mus. PARIS, Mus. des Arts Décoratifs. - Mus. Carnavalet. - Ec. Nat. Supérieur des BA. - Mus. d'Orsay. - Petit Pal. PHILADELPHIA, Mus. of Art. WASHINGTON, Corcoran Gall. of Art. EXHIBITIONS Paris: 1875 EcBA (Kat.); 1876 Hôtel Drouot: Cat. des oeuvres de feu Barye v. 7.-12.2.1876; 1884 Cat. des bronzes de Barye (modèles) v. 24.8.1884; 1886 Cat. des bronzes de Barye v. 27.2.1886; 1889 EcBA (Kat.) / 1889 New York, Amer. Art Gall., Barye Mon. Assoc. / 1909 New York, Grolier Club / 1956-57 Paris, Louvre (Kat.) / 1963 New York, Alan Gall. (Kat.) / 1972 London, Sladmore Gall. (Kat.) / 1972 (Versteigerungen v.16.3.; 9.6.), '73 (v. 13.3.; 19.3.) Paris, Pal. Galliera / 1973 Evry, Ferme du Bois Briard (Cat.) / 1988 Washington, Corcoran Gall. of Art (Kat.). - G: ab 1827 häufig Paris, Salon / 1965 Baltimore, Mus. of Art: The George A. Lucas Coll. of the Maryland Inst. (Kat.) / 1973 Lausanne, Gal. des Arts Décoratifs: Les Animaliers du XIXe s. (Kat.) / 1975 Cambridge (Mass.), Fogg Art Mus.: Metamorphoses in 19th c. Sculpt. (Kat.) / 1978 Los Angeles, County Mus. of Art: The Romantics to Rodin (Kat.) / 1986 Paris, Grand Pal.: La Sculpt. franç. au XIXe s. (Kat.). BIBLIOGRAPHY- Citations Thieme-Becker II, 1908. Bellier/Auvray I, 1882; Champeaux, 1886; Lami I, 1914; DBF V, 1951; ELU I, 1959; Kindler, ML I, 1964; H.Berman, Bronzes. Sculptors and founders 1800-1930, Chicago 1974-80. - Delaborde, Discours prononçé aux funérailles de M. Barye le 28.6.1875, P. 1875; Ch.de Kay, B., N.Y. 1889 (1974); A.Alexandre, B., P. 1889; R.Ballu, L'oeuvre de B., P. 1890; E.Guillaume, Discours prononçé à l'inauguration du mon. élevé à la mémoire de Barye ... le 18.6.1894, P. 1894; Ch. Saunier, B., P. 1925; G.H. Hamilton, Art Bull. 18:1936, 248-257; P.Remington (Ed.), Sculpt. by B., N.Y., Metrop. Mus. of Art 1940; Ch.O. Zieseniss, Les aqu. de B., P. 1954; Weltkunst 26:1956(4)4; Goya 1956(15)204; H.Gérard, Rev. des Arts 6:1956, 223-230; id., Jardin des Arts 27:1957, 153-158; Van Loo, Naturalia 63:1958, 13-20; A.Lengyel, Life and art of B., Dubuque Iowa 1963; L.Johnson, BurlMag 106:1964, 416-419; J. de Caso, J. of the Walters Art Gall. 27/28:1964/65, 66-73; G.F. Benge, ibid. 31/32:1968-70, 13-27; id., The sculpt. of B. in Amer. Coll., Diss. Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City 1969 (unveröff.); Minneapolis Inst. of Arts Bull. 59:1970, 60-63; J.Peignot, Connaissance des Arts 243:1972, 116-121; J.Mackay, The animaliers, Lo. 1973; St.Pivar, The B. bronzes, Woodbridge 1974 (1981); W.R.Johnston, Apollo 100:1974, 402-410; J.-M. Darnis, Club franç. de la méd. Bull. 47/48:1975, 164-169; G.F. Benge, Bull. of Detroit Inst. of Arts 56:1977/78, 231-242; id., in: Art, the ape of nature, Festschr. für H.J. Janson, N.Y.1981, 607-630; J.L. Wassermann, Sculpt. by B. in the Coll. of the Fogg Art Mus., C., Mass. 1982; F.-R. Loffredo, Bull. de la Soc. de l'hist. de l'art franç. 1982, 147-157; G.F. Benge, Atti del XXIV. Congr. internaz. di storia dell' arte. Bo. 1979, H.6:La scult., Bo. 1984, 103-110; id., B., sculpt. of romantic realism, Pennsylvania State Univ. Press (Philadelphia), 1984 (Lit.); Kjellberg, 1987; M.Sonnabend, B. (1795-1875), M. 1988 (Lit.; Quellen). - Quellen-Mat. v.a. in Paris, Arch. du Louvre, Arch. Nat., Bibl. Jaques Doucet, Bibl. Nat., Cab. des Estampes (vgl. M.Sonnabend, B., M. 1988). - Mitt. J.-M. Darnis, Paris. Other BIBLIOGRAPHIES Lami A. Alexandre: Antoine-Louis Barye (Paris, 1889) C. DeKay: Barye: Life and Works (New York, 1889) R. Ballu: L'Oeuvre de Barye (Paris, 1890) L. Delteil: Barye: Le Peintre graveur illustré, vi (Paris, 1910) C. Saunier: Barye (Paris, 1925) G. H. Hamilton: 'The Origin of Barye's Tiger Hunt', A. Bull., xviii (1936), pp. 248-51 A. Dezarrois: 'Le Monument de Napoléon Ier à Grenoble par Barye: Un Projet mystérieusement abandonné', Rev. A., lxxi (1937), pp. 258-66 G. Hubert: 'Barye et la critique de son temps', Rev. A., vi (1956), pp. 223-30 C. O. Zieseniss: Les Aquarelles de Barye: Etude critique et catalogue raisonné (Paris, 1956) [z] Barye: Sculptures, peintures, aquarelles des collections publiques françaises (exh. cat., Paris, Louvre, 1956-7) [major exhibition, excellent documentation] J. de Caso: 'Origin of Barye's Ape Riding a Gnu: Barye and Thomas Landseer', Walters A.G. Bull., xxvii-xxviii (1964-5), pp. 66-73 G. F. Benge: The Sculptures of Antoine-Louis Barye in the American Collections, with a Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols (diss., Iowa City, U. IA, 1969) J. Peignot: 'Barye et les bêtes', Conn. A., 243 (1972), pp. 116-21 S. Pivar: The Barye Bronzes: A Catalogue Raisonné (London, 1974) [incl. doc. forming and liquidating Barye & Cie, 1845-57, and Barye's last sale cat., 1865] G. F. Benge: 'Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875)', Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-century Sculpture (exh. cat., ed. J. L. Wasserman; Cambridge, MA, Fogg, 1975), pp. 77-107 A Barye Bronze and Three Related Terra Cottas', Bull. Detroit Inst. A., lvi/4 (1978), pp. 231-42 Barye, Flaxman and Phidias', La scultura nel XIX secolo. Acts of the 24th International Congress of Art History: Bologna, 1979, vi, pp. 99-105 Antoine-Louis Barye', The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-century Sculpture from North American Collections (exh. cat., ed. P. Fusco and H. W. Janson; Los Angeles, CA, Co. Mus. A., 1980), pp. 124-41 Barye's Apotheosis Pediment for the New Louvre: Napoleon I Crowned by History and the Fine Arts', Art the Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor of H. W. Janson (New York, 1981), pp. 607-30 D. Viéville: 'Antoine-Louis Barye', 'Napoléon Ier en redingote, 1866', De Carpeaux à Matisse: La Sculpture française de 1850 à 1914 dans les musées et les collections publiques du nord de la France (exh. cat., Calais, Mus. B.-A.; Lille, Mus. B.-A.; Paris, Mus. Rodin; 1982-3), pp. 93-7 G. F. Benge: Antoine-Louis Barye, Sculptor of Romantic Realism (University Park, PA, 1984) [crit. disc., documentation, good illus.] 2010-11-15 08:19:07 GMT 2 Harris Arthur http://www.harrisantiques.com/blog/entry/1-FERDINAND-BARBEDIENNE Other Occupation:     Bronze manufacturer    Furniture manufacturerGeographical data:     FranceBorn:     January 10, 1810 in St-Martin-de-Fresnay (Calvados)Died:     1892 in ParisBorn in 1810 in Saint-Martin-de-Fresnay in Calvados, Barbedienne went to Paris at the age of 13. He was placed as an apprentice with a saddler, and then worked in different wallpaper shops before establishing himself independently on the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette in 1833. He made the acquaintance of Achille Collas, who had invented a cylinder for the impression of painted canvases and then completed an apparatus intended to mechanically reduce statues. In 1838, the two men entered into partnership and started to manufacture bronzes. His new firm, under the name of Collas & Barbedienne, specialized in antique reproductions and developed new processes for patinations and colored bronzes. At first they produced reproductions of antiquities, including the Venus de Milo, and then sought out models by living artists. The Maison Barbedienne is best known for its foundry, where many sculptures by Barbedienne himself, as well as those after renowned artists were cast. Their first casting contract was signed with Rude on March 22, 1843. This brought them international acclaim and by the latter part of the nineteenth century, the firm of Barbedienne became France's leading manufacturer of artistic bronzes. By 1847 he had established a factory for the production of bronzes in Paris, where in addition to sculptures he produced silver and reproduction furniture in a variety of styles. After enduring grave difficulties turn the revolution of 1848, the firm began to increasingly expand its activities. They worked for a number of renowned sculptors, producing works of notes including Rude's standing pose of Godefroy Cavaignac, the works of Clesinger (for whom they serve as the exclusive founders), works by David d'Angers and many other artists, as well as some personal objects, chandeliers, and fireplace accessories. To Barbedienne's head office was henceforth established at the 30 Boulevard Poissonniere, and his studios at 63 Rue de Lancry.In 1850 he was commissioned to furnish the main rooms of the Hotel de Ville in Paris. In that same year he was commissioned to furnish the Paris Town Hall for which he was awarded the medaille d'honneur at the Paris Exhibition in 1855. He was directly associated with Napoleon III when he supplied the candelabrum for the newly fitted and furnished apartments in the Louvre. They exhibited at the London Exhibition of 1851 a reduced size reproduction of Ghiberti's principal door for the Baptistery in Florence. By the time that Collas died in 1859, Barbedienne employed some 300 workers, who produced as many as 1,200 subjects, including the work of Michelangelo, Luca Della Robbia and Antoine-Louis Barye, as well as making busts of historical notables (e.g. Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin). And possessed a specialized field for casting bronze monuments.From around 1860 to the 1880's Barbedienne was experimenting with champleve and cloisonne enamels to achieve a production technique that would compete with the flood of oriental imports from Japan. There is a champleve enamel and gilt-bronze vase and tripod by Barbedienne in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Barbedienne worked from his own designs as well as those of other leading artists. He was always interested in artistic and technical innovation and experimented with champleve and cloisonne enamels to achieve a production technique that would compete with the flood of oriental imports from Japan (1826-1862) one of which was purchased from the London 1862 exhibition. After 1860 the absence of Collas left Barbedienne the sole master of the business. In an excerpt from 1866 Barbedienne catalog explained that "the licenses, machines, and models that had belonged to the Societe A. Collas and Barbedienne became the exclusive propriety of the Barbedienne house. The mathematical reductions... continue to the sole direction of M. F. Barbedienne." Barbedienne had chaired the committee of Bronze workers for the Paris exhibition in 1867, where his work was very widely acclaimed.The success of Barbedienne's editions was considerable, as was his production. Although interrupted by the war of 1870 (when he had to furnish 70 cannons for the Defense Nationale), he had resumed with even greater strength once peace returned. Barbedienne assumed the presidency of the reunion of bronze makers from 1865 to 1885. In 1886 he was awarded the Jean Goujon Gold Medal by the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale. After the death of Barye in 1876, Barbedienne bought 125 models by Barye at a sale, and cast in a number of models marked with his initials. He exported a significant portion of his manufacturing, though rumor says all them. When Barbedienne died on March 21, 1892 the number of his workers exceeded 600. He was buried at Pere-Lachaise, and on his tune was placed a sculpted busted itself made by Alfred Boucher.Gustave Le Blanc, the nephew of Ferdinand Barbedienne had taken as a partner, succeeded him under the name of Le Blanc-Barbedienne. Le Blanc signed a contract with Rodin to ensure the Company's exclusive right to cast "Eternal Printemps" and "Baiser" for 20 years. Furthermore, in 1895 he executed the casting of the first proofs of the Bourgeois de Calais. Whether busy with small editions or with monumental castings, the company was always very successful. Le Blanc made use of agencies in the United States and Great Britain, and opened a branch in Berlin in 1913. After WWI, he worked notably on some commemorative monuments and made innumerable editions of works by Emmanuel Fremiet, and (from 1929 to 1952) busts by Daumier. LeBlanc's activity finally ended on December 31, 1954.The Barbedienne Company published a certain number of commercial catalogs in which were listed bronze castings of antique or contemporary works in many dimensions. The selection was considerable, from sculptures of the Parthenon to Michelangelo's Moise, from full and half size versions and details of the baptismal doors in Florence to Bosio's Henry IV, from the Chantuer Florentin by Paul Dubois to Mozart enfant by Barrias, and from busts by David d'Angers, to works by Aizelin, Carrier-Belleuse, Clesinger, and Gardet, not to mention the clocks, lights, decorative furnishings, and "mantelpiece artworks" decorated with enamel and other precious metals/materials. In the catalogs published before 1875 appeared the heading "Depot de la collection Barye". 2010-11-15 08:18:42 GMT 1 Harris Arthur