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Ferdinand Barbedienne
‘The Soldier of Marathon’
£30,000
'The Soldier of Marathon' - A Large Patinated Bronze Group After A Model by Jean-Pierre Cortot, Cast by Ferdinand Barbedienne. Jean-Pierre Cortot (d....
Dimensions
Height: 96 cm (38 in)Width: 107 cm (43 in)
Depth: 39 cm (16 in)
PrintDescription
‘The Soldier of Marathon’ – A Large Patinated Bronze Group After A Model by Jean-Pierre Cortot, Cast by Ferdinand Barbedienne.
Jean-Pierre Cortot (d. 1843) studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. After winning the Prix de Rome in 1809, he returned to Paris as a professor at the Ecole. Cortot exhibited the plaster model of this sculpture at the Salon in 1822. In 1831, Louis-Philippe, recently crowned, commissioned a marble version from Cortot which is now exhibited in the Louvre.
Barbedienne edited the model in four sizes, the present cast being an example of the largest.
France, Circa 1880.
Date
Circa 1880
Origin
France
Medium
Patinated Bronze
Signature
Inscribed 'SOLDAT SPARTIATE' and 'F. BARBEDIENNE FOUNDEUR'.
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.
