Ferdinand Barbedienne
A Highly Important Pair of Large Patinated Bronze Figural Torchères
£260,000
A Highly Important Pair of Large Patinated Bronze Figural Torchères By Émile Guillemin, Cast by Ferdinand Barbedienne. Barbedienne Title: 'Deux Femmes,...
Dimensions
Height: 226 cm (89 in)Width: 50 cm (20 in)
Depth: 74 cm (30 in)
Description
A Highly Important Pair of Large Patinated Bronze Figural Torchères By Émile Guillemin, Cast by Ferdinand Barbedienne.
Barbedienne Title: ‘Deux Femmes, Indienne et Persane ‘
This grand and imposing pair of figural torcheres are of exceptional quality, the figures finely cast with wonderful detail and finely patinated. Barbedienne made a number of editions of this model in different sizes, the present examples being an example of the largest and most rare. The models are listed in Ferdinand Barbedienne’s 1886 catalogue as Deux Femmes, Indienne et Persane.
Date
Dated 1872
Origin
France
Medium
Patinated Bronze
Signature
Incised 'Ele. Guillemin 1872' and bearing the cachet for 'F. BARBEDIENNE.FONDEUR'.
Ferdinand Barbedienne (6 August 1810 – 21 March 1892) was a French metalworker and manufacturer, who was well known as a bronze founder.
The son of a small farmer from Calvados, he started his career as a dealer in wallpaper in Paris. In 1838 he went into partnership with Achille Collas (1795-1859), who had just invented a machine to create miniature bronze replicas of statues. Together they started a business selling miniatures of antique statues from museums all over Europe, thus democratising art and making it more accessible to households. From 1843 they extended their scope by reproducing the work of living artists and also diversified by making enamelled household objects. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 the firm briefly had to switch to cannon founding owing to the shortage of metals but resumed business afterwards. Following Barbedienne’s death in 1892, he was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery and the firm was carried on by his nephew Gustave Leblanc until 1952.
Among the principal artists reproduced by the firm were Antoine Louis Barye and Auguste Rodin.
Barbedienne, Ferdinand, ‘Catalogue des Bronzes d’art 1886’.Kjellberg, Pierre ‘Les Bronzes du XIX Siecle, dictionnaire des sculpteurs’, pps. 369-370.