Marble Animal Sculptures

AUGUSTE NICHOLAS CAIN French, 1822-1894 "Ours Chiffonnier, Porte-Cigares" [A Seated Harvester Bear designed as a cigar stand] Patinated bronze situated over original black marble b...

A fine pair of Neoclassical style white marble whippets, each well-carved animal in a resting position on a rectangular plinth. These sculptures have an attractively weathered patina...

Exhibited at the Salon of 1883 in wax as no. 4173, Coq Français Chantant was initially acquired for the Petit-Palais des Champs-Elysées. This delightf cast features a brilliant gilde...

EMILE LOUIS BRACQUEMOND French, 1889-1970 "Stalking Panther" Patinated bronze on black Belgian marble engraved "Bracquemond" to base circa 1930 Item # 304LYF16A A very fine ex...

A very nice modeling of a young goat rooted on its backlegs as its body spins in the air, raising its hooves and lowering its head in that familiar playful jumping dance. Designed as...

A very fine and well defined bronze sculpture set on a marble base by renowned French sculptor Irénée Rochard (1906-1984). Rochard was born in Villefranche-sur-Saone in 1906 into a f...

These remarkable Italian marble objets d'art are based on two of the most famous classical sculptures ever found, the Furietti Centaurs. These Roman ...

A powerful group of two panthers engaged in combat, it was initially sculpted by Gardet in 1896 and presented at the Paris Salon of the same year as Les Panthères. There was received with acclaim by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts: "Le merveilleux est la souplesse des peaux sous lesquelles on voit s'amasser les muscles, se detendre les nerfs, palpiter les organs... L'artiste a su, par une patientre patine, apparenter le grain au pelage vrai des fauves [The beauty is in the suppleness of the skin under which we see the muscles amass, the nerves relax and the organs throb... The artist has, through a patient patina, simulated the grain of the coat true of the wild animals]" Large and dramatic in scale, the model captures the sheer ferocity of the creatures as their lean muscled bodies twist and writhe in a mortal dance. The rocky naturalistic base is signed in block G. GARDET. It is carved out of a single solid block of marble that was then polychromed and stained to create the effective simulation of the finely textured coat. This model was acquired by a private collector at the Christie's, London sale on March 28th of 2007 where it achieved 9,600 GBP (converting to approximately $ 18,700 USD at the prevailing exchange rate that month) on an estimate of 8,000 - 12,000 GBP. A larger artificially colored marble model of Panthers carved...

An exquisite and very rare cast of Wounded Hound, it was originally ordered as a commission for the French government at an agreed upon price of 2,500 francs on October 6th of 1849. ...

An exquisite casting of a Knight on Horseback after the model by Alfred Barye, it is an exacting and powerful representation of both horse and rider and we are unaware of any other r...

An exquisitely cast model of two mice engrossed in their discovery of a snail shell. The circa 1897 bisque cast model executed by Sèvres is held in the permanent collection of the Mu...

A pair of bronze lions after Boizot for chenets in the Salon de la Paix, Versailles, 1786. These recumbent lions are unusually grand in scale and are raised upon the original Rouge Griotte marble bases. Each is modelled with a long nose, deeply set eyes with pronounced lids, abundant mane and the tail curled over the left hip. These bronzes are after the well-known model produced in terracotta by Louis-Simon Boizot for a pair of chenets in the Salon de la Paix, Versailles, in 1786. This pair probably circa 1786 and circa 1790. Provenance: The Huggins family (probably purchased by Albert Edward Huggins around 1860) Major Tom Bird DSO, MC and bar (1918-2017). Turville Heath House. Louis-Simon Boizot (1743-1809) was the son of a designer at the Gobelins Manufactory and rose to become a sculptor of international repute, working for both the Bourbon Royal family and the Imperial family that succeeded them. In addition to his works, both public and private, in marble and bronze, Boizot worked from 1773-1800 as director of sculpture at the Royal Sevres porcelain manufactory. He is also known to have worked on terracotta models that formed the basis of bronze and ormolu decorative objects and his work was frequently then chased by Thomire. The surviving records in the Guarde-Meuble at Versailles for the lion chenets are quite detailed. The artists Bureau, Pigal and Bourette received payment for design drawings and wax models and then Boizot received a considerably larger sum for producing a model in terracotta. It is therefore impossible to state, with certainty, that Boizot was responsible for the original design, but the treatment of certain features of the lions, in particular the very distinctive finishing of the eyes, is echoed in a marble self-portrait by the bronzier Thomire. Rouge Griotte marble was in particular favour with the Bourbon monarchy. Examination of these bases suggests that this marble would have been quarried in the 18th century which gives additional weight to the dating of the pieces. The fact that these valuable French works of art found their way into the home of a wealthy British entrepreneur is testament to the cordial trading relations evident in Europe following the peace of 1815. The Huggins family owned a brewery in Golden Square (Soho), London, known as the Lion Brewhouse. As can be seen from a surviving trademark application, presumably from 1875, the particular style of the “lion couchant” on the advert bears distinct similarities to the Boizot lion. Major Thomas Archer Bird, DSO, MC & Bar (1918-2017) was a distinguished British soldier whose inspirational command of the anti-tank ‘S’ Company, at Outpost Snipe during the Second Battle of El Alamein, helped destroy the armoured counter-attack of General Erwin Rommel...