Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 13

Pair of 19th Century Gilt and Silvered Bronze Sculptures of Women

About the Item

Rare pair of bronze sculptures by Emile Herbért. Fine quality silvered and gilt bronze figures of a warrior woman and a poet women dressed accordingly with military attire and poetic words. Signed and foundry marked with the G. Servant mark. Pierre-Eugène-Emile Hébert, French, (1828 - 1893). A native Parisian, Hébert apparently lived and worked in the capital until his death. He was born in 1828, and studied sculpture privately, with his father Pierre (1804-1869) and Jean-Jacques Feuchère (1807-1852), both of whom pursued modestly successful careers in the Salon and as public sculptors beginning in the 1830s. Hébert learned extensively from their very divergent paths. Whereas Pierre Hébert, a laborer's son, trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Feuchère emerged within the art-bronze industry of his family, where he also prospered, providing various founders with models throughout his career. The latter was, in fact, one of the most masterful practitioners of the romantic anti-classical historical idiom, and particularly of the neo-medieval macabre; Feuchère is best known today for his sinuous figure of Satan, a serial bronze in various sizes. Emile Hébert is the able successor to both sculptors in all such categories. Hébert began his Salon career during the Second Republic, with portrait busts of eminent sixteenth-century figures that were immediately purchased by the government. He then exhibited statuettes representing a variety of subjects--genre, classical mythologies, and the satanic. Well respected in official circles by the mid-1850s, Hébert was chosen, along with his father, to represent France in the Fine-Arts section of the 1855 Paris Universal Exposition. The state commissioned or acquired several of Hébert's works: a Bacchus for the Tuileries Palace (1866, present location unknown); personifications for the facade of the théâtre du Vaudeville, Paris; The Oracle, a marble relief (vestibule, Musée de Vienne, Isère); portrait-statues of great French writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries such as Jean-François Regnard (1880, facade, Hôtel de Ville, Paris) and François Rabelais (erected 1882, Quai Jeanne d'Arc, Chinon). Anne Pingeot discovered hitherto-unknown allegories by Hébert of anatomy and Etruscan art on the facade of the Nouveau Louvre (Pavillon Sully and between the Pavillons Daru and Denon, respectively, the latter signed and dated 1856). The sculptor showed regularly in the Salon until his death in 1893. Though he appears not to have had strong critical impact in Third-Republic exhibitions, the government of that time repeatedly chose Hébert's work to represent the nation internationally; his state-owned works appeared in the French Fine-Arts section of the 1873 Vienna Universal Exposition. Thanks to Catherine Chevillot's unpublished research on nineteenth-century French foundries, it emerges that Hébert's lifetime reputation instead rests heavily upon his prolific work for the art-bronze industry throughout his career. Unlike most entrepreneurial animaliers and Carpeaux, who cast and marketed their own works, Hébert produced models for edition in bronze, plaster, and terracotta by other founders for at least thirty years. Though they frequently obtained reproduction rights, founders commonly identified Hébert as the sculptor in the catalogue and on the casts. He is recorded as providing models for a founder known only as E. Vittoz (a bronze Mephistopheles, for example); for another known only as E. Sévenier (a clock ornament of Hide-and-Seek, in addition to busts and groups); and for Auguste Gouge (Oedipus and the Sphinx, in bronze and plaster variants). Hébert's best-recorded and apparently longest-lived relationship, however, was with a founder today known only as G. Servant, whom the sculptor supplied with new models and variants of his Salon entries from the 1860s until Servant sold the business in 1882. Hébert's serial designs were thus seen and reviewed, possibly triggering orders at the founders' displays at the international exhibitions in London and on the continent through at least the 1870s.
  • Creator:
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 17.5 in (44.45 cm)Width: 6.5 in (16.51 cm)Depth: 5 in (12.7 cm)
  • Sold As:
    Set of 2
  • Materials and Techniques:
  • Place of Origin:
  • Period:
  • Date of Manufacture:
    1860
  • Condition:
    Wear consistent with age and use. Beautiful estate condition.
  • Seller Location:
    Norwood, NJ
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU5080232092452
More From This SellerView All
  • Pair of 19th Century Gilt Bronze Relief Plaques With Children
    By Elkington & Co.
    Located in Norwood, NJ
    Pair of French 19th century gilt bronze (electrotype technique) relief plaques. Children in backyard farm, garden scene.
    Category

    Antique Late 19th Century English Belle Époque Decorative Art

    Materials

    Copper, Gold Plate

  • Pair Of 19th Century Bronze Sculpture Young Girls By Mathurin Moreau
    By Mathurin Moreau
    Located in Norwood, NJ
    Mathurin Moreau (1822 - 1912) France. Large pair of bronzes in opposition with rich brown patina. Original 19th century bronze sculptures of Two young girls in a field...
    Category

    Antique Late 19th Century French Belle Époque Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • 19th Century Bronze Sculpture Father And Son By Henri Honore Plé
    By H. Ple
    Located in Norwood, NJ
    Henri Honore Plé (1853 - 1922). This beautiful original 19th century French sculpture depicts a moment between father and son. Fine quality patinated bronze, in the naturalistic styl...
    Category

    Antique Late 19th Century French Beaux Arts Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • 19th Century Sculpture Of A Young Woman With Flowers By Marcel Debut
    By Marcel Debut
    Located in Norwood, NJ
    Highly detailed original 19th century bronze sculpture of young lady holding flowers. Dressed in beautiful gown with flowers in her hair. Signed on b...
    Category

    Antique Late 19th Century French Belle Époque Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Marble, Bronze

  • 19th Century French Sculpture Of A Seated Mercury by Pierre Marius Montagne
    By Pierre Marius Montagne
    Located in Norwood, NJ
    Fine quality Seated Hermes/Mercury. French 19th century bronze seated Mercury / Hermes. "Rastender Merkur" by Pierre Marius Montagne (1828-1879). Fine quality patinated bronze on fau...
    Category

    Antique 1860s French Beaux Arts Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Pair Of Gilt Bronze and Crystal 19th Century Louis XV Chandeliers
    Located in Norwood, NJ
    Pair of fine quality French 19th century Louis XV chandeliers. 8 light. Ormolu bronze and crystal with a Rococo influence. Fine...
    Category

    Antique Late 19th Century French Louis XV Chandeliers and Pendants

    Materials

    Crystal, Bronze

You May Also Like
  • 19th Century Gilt-Bronze Sculpture of Dionysos
    Located in Berlin, DE
    The gilt-bronze statue of a nude youthful Dionysus standing on his right leg. In contrapposto position sculpted with a well-defined musculature. The head is bent down with a contempl...
    Category

    Antique Late 19th Century Italian Napoleon III Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Pair of gilt bronze sculptures of Cupidon and Psyché, 19th century
    Located in NICE, FR
    Pair of Napoleon III period gilt bronze andirons, 19th century, depicting Cupid and Psyche on acanthus leaf bases. High-quality gilding with matte and glossy finishes. Ideal for de...
    Category

    Antique 1850s French Louis XV Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Monumental Pair of 19th Century Gilt and Patinated Bronze Sculptures of Putti
    By Henri Alphonse Nelson
    Located in New York, NY
    A monumental pair of gilt and patinated bronze figural sculptures of putti attributed H Nelson. Depicting two finely casted seated cherub holding reliefs. ...
    Category

    Antique 19th Century French Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze, Ormolu

  • Bronze Sculpture of Victorian Women from 19th Century
    Located in Warsaw, PL
    Bronze sculpture of two women with a child from the 19th century with an inscription on the plaque “Salon 1887”. The three characters depicted in this statue give viewers a feeling of love for life. Two women with characteristic Victoria updo with soft curls are in dark patina bronze. They wear long gown meticulously sculpted by the artist, soft with each fold of the lapel embracing the round, full body of a woman. The woman on the left is gently holding a naked child...
    Category

    Antique 19th Century Other Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Wood

  • 19th Century, Pair of French Empire Gilt and Patinated Bronze Sculptures Sphinxe
    Located in IT
    19th century, Pair of French Empire Gilt and Patinated Bronze Sculptures Sphinxes This pair of decorative elements was made in F...
    Category

    Antique Early 19th Century French Empire Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • 19th Century Gilt Bronze Horse Sculpture
    Located in CHALON-SUR-SAÔNE, FR
    Group of horses on a naturalistic basis Sculpture in gilded and chiseled bronze Period 1st part of the 19th century France Unsigned Very good condition
    Category

    Antique Early 19th Century French Beaux Arts Animal Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

Recently Viewed

View All