Georges Gardet Figurative Sculptures

Animal sculptor Sophie MARTIN creates from inert clay a whole living animal kingdom. She freely observes the animal and captures and interprets a movement; and places it in nature an...

A fine late 19th century antique French bronze sculpture group, of a pair of race horses & jockeys, by Paul Louis Emile Loiseau-Rousseau, Paris (1861-1927). The bronze circa 1895 de...

A good antique cast bronze sculpture an Egyptian Revival bust "The Queen of Babylon", by the 19th century French sculptor Paul Auguste Gagne, circa 1875. This rare & unusual bronze b...

Antique Silvered Bronze Rooster France, circa 1900 10 1/4 x 9 1/2 (H x D) inches A very fine and lively bronze statuette of a preening Rooster. Nicely cast and well-carved and in ex...

In this work, the author turned to classical mythology and created the image of the goddess Venus. Goddesses of youth, beauty and love. He created the classical female torso on a marble basement. Кeferring to the classical works of antiquity, the sculptor created his own version of the Venus statue...

This bronze sculpture of a deer is a realistic rendering of the majestic animal. Deer have been the center of literature and art for many cultures across the world. They have also ...

Jean BULIO (1827-1911), "Venus and Love," bronze medal patina group signed on base. Susse Frères foundry mark engraved on the back. Otttimo state of preservation. Measurements :...

Antique Horse Bronze Portrait of a Trotting Stallion Isidore Jules Bonheur (France, 1827-1901) Cast bronze mounted on a rectangular plinth with dark brown patina, Signed: I. BONHEUR 17 x 11 3/4 A brilliant exploration of a stallion in full trot. The patina is a deep, warm walnut brown with honey-colored tones. Isidore Bonheur was best known and the most distinguished of the 19th century French animalier sculptors. Isidore, the younger brother of Rosa Bonheur and older brother of Auguste, began his studies of painting initially with his father, who was friends with Francisco Goya. By 1848 he debuted at the Paris Salon having discontinued animal and landscape painting to concentrate on creating sculptures and in 1849, Bonheur enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He won medals at the Paris Salon in 1859 and did so again in 1865 and in 1869. After entering the Exposition Universelle 1855, he won the Gold Medal in 1889. In the 1870s exhibited in the London at the Royal Academy of Arts where he earned great prestige and won the coveted Medaille d’Or. After winning numerous other medals and prizes, Bonheur was awarded the Legion d' Honneur in 1895 and he was Knighted in Portugal, Spain and France. Bonheur continued exhibiting at the Paris Salon until 1899. Many of his bronzes were fabricated at the foundry owned by Hippolyte Peyrol, Bonheur's brother-in-law by marriage to Isidore’s youngest sister Juliette Bonheur. The Peyrol casts for both Rosa and Isidore are exceptionally well executed which suggests a strong working relationship between the founder and sculptor. There is little doubt that Isidore Bonheur was an acute observer of nature; his animals were not anthropomorphized but modelled to catch movement or posture characteristics of the particular species he was sculpting. He achieved this most successfully with his sculptures of horses which are usually depicted as relaxed rather than spirited. These figures are among his most renowned works and his equestrian models became very popular, particularly among the British aristocracy. An acute observer of nature, his sculptures reflect his commitment to the Realist school - with precise detailing of the movements of animals in their natural habitats. Ultimately, His naturalistic studies of animals are now some of the most highly sought after works by any of the animalier. He was possibly inspired by his many visits to the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show...

A good antique bronze sculpture of a brown bear by the celebrated French Animalier sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye, circa 1870. The bronze depicts a brown bear in a dynamic pose, head h...

Nice, 19th-century gilt bronze cast by Emile Francois Carlier Exhibited: Salon, Société des Artistes Français, Paris, 1865 (another cast) Salon, Société des Artistes Français, Pari...

A nineteenth-century cast of Antoine-Louis Barye's Le cheval demi-sang arabe (no. A125-Poletti; A148-Pivar), with nice patina. Poletti and Richarme, Barye: ...

This artwork "Chevre Allongee (Reclining Goat)" c. 1860, is bronze sculpture after renown French artist Antoine Louis Barye, 1796-1875. Signature is impressed in the bronze. The subject size is 4.25 x 7 x 3.35 inches, including marble base is 5.25 x 4 x 7.75 inches. It is in excellent condition. About the artist: Antoine-Louis Barye lived his entire life in Paris and may never have left France. He was born in 1795 (a date revised in the 1990s from 1796 as a result of Martin Sonnabend's recalculation of the Revolutionary calendar). He is reported to have had minimal formal schooling even in reading, and to have acquired his extensive liberal-arts education on his own. His initial professional training was in metalwork: first with his father, a goldsmith from Lyons, then with a metal engraver in military equipment, and finally with Martin-Guillaume Biennais (active 1800-1832), then master goldsmith to Napoleon. After serving in the army from 1812 to 1814, Barye trained in the fine arts with sculptor François-Joseph Bosio (1768-1845) and painter Baron Gros (1771-1835). He then studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from 1818 to 1823. His miniature medallion, Milo of Crotona Devoured by a Lion, won an honorable mention in metal engraving in 1819, but he failed to win the Prix de Rome. He worked as a craftsman for the goldsmith Jacques-Henri Fauconnier (1779-1839) from 1823 to 1831 and made his Salon debut in 1827 with a selection of busts. Barye made his critical and public mark as a sculptor four years later, in the Salon of 1831, with groups representing predatory violence in the wild. His first government commission came soon after, precisely for such a subject. The Minister of the Interior purchased Barye's monumental plaster Lion (since called Lion Crushing a Serpent), shown in 1833, and had it cast in bronze by Honoré Gonon and shown in 1836, before placing it in the public Tuileries Gardens (now Musée du Louvre, Paris). In 1834 Barye was chosen for a project that was never executed, the colossal eagle as the crowning element of the triumphal arch at the Etoile. Around 1836 the government commissioned him to execute the emblematic animal decoration on the July Column at the place de la Bastille, inaugurated in 1840. He produced a monumental effigy of Saint Clotilde for the Church of the Madeleine, Paris, in the early 1840s. In 1846 the government commissioned a pendant Seated Lion for the Tuileries Lion Crushing a Serpent (1847, bronze, Portal, Pavillon de Flore, Palais du Louvre, Paris). During these same years the royal family began buying and commissioning small-scale works from Barye for their private collections. Around 1834, the duc d'Orléans commissioned a highly publicized surtout de table representing hunts of different regions and historical periods, possibly one of several tabletop projects that he ordered from Barye. The duc's sister Marie d'Orléans allegedly commissioned a lost-wax bronze of Barye's Charles VI Surprised in the Forest of Le Mans (location unknown; later serial variants), a model first shown in the Salon of 1833; his brother, the duc de Montpensier, apparently commissioned a pair of figurative...