Paris, France, 19th century.
Mercury wearing his winged helmet and tying his sandal to his left foot, with his caduceus beneath.
Marked "DAUBRÉE" for Alfred DAUBRÉE (1817 - 1885).

Weight: 22.25 kilograms

H. 56 cm.

PROVENANCE:

Property of a lady
Acquired from the Dutch Art market
Thence by descent

LITERATURE:

Lami, Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l'école française au dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1991, reprinted 1970, II, p. 245.
Réau, J.-B. Pigalle, Paris, 1950.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
Hodgkinson, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor - Sculpture, London, 1970.
Paris, Louvre, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle 1714-1785 - Sculptures du Musée du Louvre, 1985, pp. 38-47.

NOTE:

Jean – Baptiste Pigalle (1714-1785) is one of the great French sculptors known today, he was born in Paris in 1714. He worked on his art, under the guidance of Robert Le Lorrain and then Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.

Convinced that his art is the meaning of his life, he went to Italy in 1734 to perfect his technique. On his return, he began his "Mercury attaching his heels", which allowed him to integrate "Les Beaux-Arts".

His reputation swells in the heart of the Parisian aristocracy. "Mme de Pompadour" takes him under his wing at the same time as the orders flow. Juggling between the Baroque and the Classical, he produced the portraits of "Diderot", "Voltaire" and then produced the famous funeral monuments intended for the "Marshal of Saxe” (Strasbourg, completed in 1776).

He died in Paris in 1785, leaving in his wake some very remarkable works.

FOOTNOTE:

Alfred DAUBRÉE was born in Nancy in 1817, he passed away in Paris in 1885. He owned a silverware shop in Nancy before establishing himself as an art bronze and jewelry dealer at 85 Rue Montmartre in Paris during the 1850s. He published a number of bronzes by Fratin, Cumberworth, and others. It is believed that he used intermediaries to sell his own bronzes, which rarely bore his mark. During the 1867 Universal Exposition, he was listed among the renowned bronze founders of the time. After his death in 1885, his son succeeded him.