'Bacchantes', a Fine Patinated Bronze Figural Group After Clodion, circa 1870

A fine patinated bronze Putto figure emblematic of architecture, after Claude Michel Clodion. French, circa 1890. Standing at 55 cm (22 inches) tal...

A Louis XVI style patinated bronze and marble jardinière, cast in relief with Bacchanalian Scenes Of Putti at Play, After Clodion. French, circa 1870. The body of the jardiniè...

A Pair of Oval Bronze Reliefs After Clodion. Each inscribed to the cast Clodion. Each plaque depicts a Bacchic scene of a maiden dancing with a young s...

'Grand Nu Aux Feuillages', a fine patinated bronzed figural group by Alois Mayer.  German, circa 1900. Signed 'A. Mayer'. Alois Mayer (1855-1936) Was a German Sculptor who...

A very fine gilt and patinated bronze floor standing candelabrum, after a model by Clodion. French, circa 1880. Claude Michael Clodion, (1738-1814), was the son-in-law of sculp...

A Patinated Bronze Figural Group of ‘Gloria Victis’ (‘Glory to the Vanquished’), Cast by Ferdinand Barbedienne from the Model by Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié (French, 1845-1916). ‘Gloria Victis’ (‘Glory to the Vanquished’). Bronze, gilt and dark brown patina. Signed 'A. Mercié', with foundry inscription 'F. BARBEDIENNE, Fondeur. Paris.' and A. Collas reduction cachet. The integral base titled 'GLORIA VICTIS'. This cast is part of a limited edition by the Barbedienne Foundry. France. Circa 1880. ‘Gloria Victis’ is one of the most recognisable and important works of sculpture of the nineteenth century and a definitive image of France’s historic national identity. The figure of glory, winged and wearing armour, carries a dying young warrior heavenwards towards fame and immortality. The compositional daring of the group must be admired for balancing two figures on the minimal support of one foot, wings spread in the moment before taking flight. Mercié was a student at the French Academy of Rome when the Prussians invaded France in 1870. Shortly after the war had begun, he executed a group depicting the figure of Fame supporting a victorious soldier. When news reached Mercié in Rome that the French had surrendered, he decided to alter his group, replacing the victorious soldier with a defeated casualty, thus transforming an allegory of ‘Glory to the Victors’ into one of ‘Glory to the Vanquished’. Completed in 1872, a year after the defeat of French soldiers against the Prussian army, the statue personifies a defeated but heroic France. The title is also a reversal of the famous formula, ‘Vae Victis’ (Death to the Vanquished), which the Gallic general Brennus exclaimed upon defeating the Romans in 390 BC. The figure of the fallen soldier was thought to represent Henri Regnault, a fellow sculptor of Mercié who was killed on the last day of fighting. Measuring 317 cm. high the original group of ‘Gloria Victis’ was unveiled in plaster at the Salon of 1872. It was bought by the City of Paris for the sum of twelve thousand francs and then cast in bronze by Victor Thiébaut for eight thousand five hundred francs. The bronze was exhibited at the Salon in 1875 and first placed in Montholon Square in the 8th arrondissement. In 1884 it was transferred to the courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville and in 1930, it entered the collection of the Musée du Petit Palais, where it can be seen to this day. The Thiébaut Frères foundry also cast Gloria Victis bronzes for the cities of Niort (requested 1881) Bordeaux (requested 1883), Châlons-sur-Marne (today, Châlons-en-Champagne; requested 1890), and Cholet (requested 1901). In 1905, the Danish brewer and art collector Carl Jacobsen was permitted to have an exact cast made of the original sculpture in Paris, on condition that the base was made 2 cm lower and bore the inscription “Original tilhører Paris By” (The original belongs to the City of Paris). It too was cast by the Thiébaut Frères foundry. Gloria Victis was one of Jacobsen’s most important and his last acquisition. Today it has been returned to its original position in the Winter Garden at Glyptoteket, Copenhagen, Denmark. The full-size plaster was shown again at the Paris Expositon universelle of 1878 alongside a bronze reduction by Barbedienne. By this time Antonin Mercié had entered into a commercial edition contract with the Ferdinand Babedienne foundry to produce bronze reductions of Gloria Victis, his most famous work. Gloria Victis is first recorded to have been produced in three sizes and by 1886 Barbedienne’s ‘Catalogue des Bronzes D’Art’ lists six sizes measuring 3/5, 9/20, 7/20, 3/10, 6/25 and 2/10, of the original. These reductions were produced by an invention of Barbedienne’s business partner Achille Collas. The Collas reducing machine was a type of complex mechanical pantograph lathe that enabled sculpture to be mathematically measured and transcribed to scale, in the round, thus making a reduced size plaster from which a bronze could be cast. Mercié's modern sculpture had become an instant classic, even receiving an entry in the Nouveau Larousse Illustré. The success of the group undoubtedly lay in the fact that it was admired not just on an aesthetic level, but also on a patriotic level, particularly in its commemoration of heroism in defeat. Immediately ‘Gloria Victis’ was recognised as a national artwork, capable of arousing patriotism and casts were ordered from Barbedienne as local memorials commemorating the war’s dead for cities across France. ‘Gloria Victis’ was considered so much a part of France’s national identity that for the 1900 Paris Exhibition, Ferdinand Barbedienne’s nephew Gustave Leblanc, loaned a bronze example to feature as part of l’Exposition centennale de l’art français. Literature: For an interesting account of the process of creating a reduction in bronze of the Gloria Victis by Barbedienne and illustrations of the casting and finishing of the bronze see: 'Ferdinand Barbedienne': Theodore Child; Harper's new monthly magazine, Volume 73, Issue 436, September 1886. ‘Contemporary French Sculptors’: The Century, Volume 33, Issue 3, Jan 1887. ‘Modern French Sculpture’: Harper's new monthly magazine, Volume 76, Issue 452, January 1888. S, Lami, ‘Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'Ecole française au dix-neuvième siècle’, Tome III. G.-M., Paris, 1914, p. 432. Peter Fusco and H.W. Janson, The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth Century Sculpture from North...

This exquisite Rococo style sculpture depicts a moment of revelry, showing a woman with two infants. She is shown holding one of them on her lap, and with another below. The naturali...

This dynamic antique patinated bronze sculpture is composed of two female figures and a satyr captured in a moment of frenzied dancing and Bacchic revelry. The women are dressed in f...

Large bronze group with brown patina after Claude Michel, called Clodion (French, 1738-1814). The statuette features two young bacchantes and three putti. The bacchantes are crowned ...

Patinated bronze "Bacchanalia" after the celebrated 1762 model by Claude Michel Clodion (French, 1738-1814), circa late 19th century. #1555 The figural group of two female figures...

Terracotta after Clodion, A Bacchante Mounted on a Double Marble Pedestal. Signed on the back in the clay "Clodion." Claude Michel Clodion was a French R...

Signed Clodion From our Sculpture collection, we are pleased to offer this French Belle Epoque Bronze of Ariadne cast after Clodion (Claude Michel). The sculpture of fine casting and beautiful patination is sculpted as a bust of a Ariadne in nature with her hair tied up and leaves intwined in her hair. The Bronze sits upon a circular socle with a square base signed to the right hand face Clodion. The Bronze cast after the original during the neoclassical era dating to the second half of the 19th century during the Belle Epoque era (c.1970-1914) circa 1875. Clodion was the alias of Claude Michel (1738-1814) a French born sculptor working in the Rococo style, especially noted for his works in marble, bronze, & terracotta. Many of Clodion’s works feature in museum collections around the world with some of his most pivotal works including The Intoxication of Wine and The Dance of Time. Ariadne In Greek mythology was a Cretan princess and the daughter of King Minos of Crete. Ariadne was known for aiding Theseus escape the Minotaur and then being abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. There, Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping, fell in love with her, and later married her. Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne’s jewelled crown into the sky to create a constellation, the Corona Borealis...