Bull pawing the earth
Antoine-Louis Barye (Paris 1795 – Paris 1875)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1857 (model) - circa 1876 (cast after)
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
185 x 278 x 102 mm
Place of origin
Paris
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 515001
Summary
Bronze, Bull pawing the earth, Antonie-Louis Barye (1796-1876), the original model made in 1841, this edition cast from c.1857 onwards in the Barbedienne foundry. The bull paws at the ground, left foreleg raised and head held downward, on a rough terrain, integrally cast with the double-stepped bronze base. The bronze is signed Barye on the surface of the base, and also bears the Barbedienne foundry stamp ‘FB’ (Fonderie Barbedienne).
Full description
The Bull pawing the Earth is one of a group of models made by Barye in the 1830s and early 1840s which all feature animals depicted standing or walking in an essentially planar silhouetted view, meant to be seen from the long side, when placed on an abstract baseline or plinth. Others in the series include bronze reliefs of a Walking Leopard, a Roaring Lion and the so-called Lion of the Zodiac, and figures of a Striding Lion, Striding Tiger and Striding Jaguar (Pivar, The Barye Bronzes, nos. R10, R9, R7, A49, A58, A77). The composition of the bull pawing the earth may have been suggested to Barye by an ancient cameo in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Benge, Antoine-Louis Barye, p. 84, fig. 204). Barye made a first model around 1838, issuing his first edition in 1842; the Anglesey Abbey bronze is an example of Barye’s second variant version, first published c. 1857, in which he slightly raised the terrasse, remodelled the bull’s horns and raised its left leg slightly. The master model in bronze was formerly in the collection of Fabius Frères (Rionnet, Barbedienne, fig. 153). The most frequently-reproduced cast of the model is that in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The Barbedienne foundry acquired the model of this second edition in 1876. Therefore, examples with the foundry stamp, such as the Anglesey Abbey version, must date from 1876 or later. Jeremy Warren, 2018
Provenance
Bought by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) from David Black on 24 March 1943, ‘A fine Bronze figure of a Bull by Barye’, for £15; bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (The National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Base, left: BARYE Base, right: FB (Foundry Barbedienne stamp)
Makers and roles
Antoine-Louis Barye (Paris 1795 – Paris 1875), sculptor Ferdinand Barbedienne (Calvados 1810 - Paris 1892), founder
References
Christie, Manson & Woods 1971: The National Trust, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge. Inventory: Furniture, Textiles, Porcelain, Bronzes, Sculpture and Garden Ornaments’, 1971, p.139 Pivar 1974: Stuart Pivar, The Barye Bronzes, Woodbridge 1974, pp. 44, 210, no. A156 Benge 1984: Glenn F. Benge, Antoine-Louis Barye. Sculptor of Romantic Realism, University Park/London 1984, pp. 2, 84, fig 65. Poletti and Richame 2000: Michel Poletti and Alain Richarme, Barye. Catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Paris 2000, p. 322, no. A177. Rionet 2016: Florence Rionnet, Les Bronzes Barbedienne. L’œuvre d’une dynastie de fondeurs (1834-1954), Paris 2016, pp. 135, 267, cat. 392, fig. 153.