Tom, levrier d'Algérie (esquisse): M.19-2015

Titles

Tom, levrier d'Algérie (esquisse)
Translated as: Tom, Algerian greyhound
(Tom, Algerian greyhound (sketch))

Maker(s)

Sculptor: Barye, Antoine Louis

Entities

• Animal figure

Categories

• Sculpture

Description

A bronze Algerian greyhound, crouched.

Notes

History note: Sotheby's, London, 20 Dec. 1961, lot 106; purchased by L. Spero for Sir Ivor Batchelor

Legal notes

Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor Bequest through The Art Fund

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2015-04-27) by Batchelor, Ivor, Sir and Lady

Dating

19th Century, Late#
Production date: after AD 1868 : Original model 1868; first cast in bronze after 1868. This version cast at an unknown date after 1868.

Note

Dubbed the ‘Michelangelo of the Menagerie’ by art critic Théophile Gautier (1811–72), Barye was a Romantic realist artist based in Paris who popularised the genre of animal sculpture from the 1830s onwards. Animals were very low down in the traditional Academic hierarchy of accepted subject-matter for artists, and the term animalier (an artist specialising in animals) was coined by critics specifically for Barye as a pejorative appellation. Barye was a successful monumental sculptor, but also created hundreds of small-scale models of animals for reproduction in bronze editions for middle-class homes. His last sales catalogue of 1865 listed over 230 compositions available to order as edition bronze statuettes. Keen for accuracy, Barye studied ancient animal sculptures as well as live beasts in the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle’s menagerie, copied zoological specimens in the Musée d’Anatomie Comparée and made anatomical drawings of dead lions. Bayre’s animal portraits include single animal figures (e.g. M.6-1997) and groups of predators with prey, or in combat with each other (e.g. M.1-2015), and some with human figures (e.g. M.5-2015). The model for this bronze dates from 1868, late in Barye’s career, when he was commissioned to produce a marble greyhound for a French patrician Comte Nicolaï. The model was offered in reduced form in Barye’s last two catalogues. It was been estimated that fewer than 20 lifetime casts of this model were made. At the posthuomous sale of Barye’s studio contents, the foundry model was bought by Maison Susse, an important Paris bronze foundry in the market of edition bronzes in 1876, but Susse appears not to have edited it. Hector Brame later cast it around 1900. As the present cast bears no foundry mark, it is possible that it is a lifetime cast.

School or Style

French