Lot n° 159
Estimation :
12000 - 15000
EUR
D'après François GIRARDON (1628-1715) - Lot 159
D'après François GIRARDON (1628-1715)
The Abduction of Proserpine
Bronze with brown patina
H. 52,5 cm
End 18th century - Begining 19th century
The greatest French sculptor of his time, François Girardon played a crucial role in the birth of the classical style of academic sculpture that took center stage during the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and that would influence generations of artists to come in France and beyond. After completing his training in Paris and Rome, in 1657 Girardon was officially admitted to the Académie Royale, where his Morceau de réception was an oval marble medallion of the Virgin of Sorrows (now in the Louvre). His importance as a leading French sculptor is evident in two very prestigious commissions, ...
The bronze presented here is one of Girardon's most spectacular and sophisticated compositions, also famously executed in marble for the planned but never completed Parterre d'Eau in the gardens of Versailles. Both a tribute to the most famous masterpieces of previous generations - Giambologna's The Rape of the Woman Sabina in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence (completed 1583) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's own 1622 depiction of the Abduction of Proserpine (Galleria Borghese, Rome) - and a bold statement of intent, Girardon
Girardon depicts the moment in ancient mythology when the god Pluto abducts Proserpine and takes her to his reign - the underworld - to become his wife, as recounted in Book V of
Metamorphoses by Ovid. The marble version, completed by
Girardon in 1699, had been commissioned by King Louis XIV in 1677, as part of a series of four monumental abduction groups intended to symbolize the four elements, the present composition representing fire through
Pluto with Hades.
G.Bresc-Bautier and G.Scherf (eds.), Fonte en bronze: Sculpture française de la Renaissance à la Révolution, exh. (Musée du Louvre, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the J.P.
Getty Museum, Los Angeles - 2009), No. 68.
Europäische Barockplastik am Niederrhein: Grupello und seine
Zeit, exh. Chat. Kunstmuseum, (Düsseldorf - 1971), no. 334, pages 368-69, pl. 215.
F.Souchal, "La Collection du sculpteur Girardon d'après son
Inventory after death", Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol. LXXXII, (Paris - 1973), p. 1-112.
F.Souchal, Sculpteurs français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles: le règne de Louis XIV, (Oxford - 1981-93), vol. II, no. 42, pp. 41-43 and supplementary vol. (London - 1993), no. 42, pages 102-104.
A.Maral, Girardon, le Sculpteur de Louis XIV, (Paris - 2016), pp.428, 450, 511, illus. p.449.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue