Candlestick with a figure of The Dying Slave
Ferdinand Barbedienne (Calvados 1810 - Paris 1892)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1880 - 1900
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
530 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Paris
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 515075
Summary
Bronze, Candlestick with a figure of The Dying Slave, Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892) after Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), c. 1880-1900. A bronze candlestick from the foundry of Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-92), in the form of a small-scale reproduction of the marble statue of The Dying Slave by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (M.R. 1590). The figure is placed before an Ionic pilaster, which served as the candlestick. The signature of the founder Barbedienne and the Collas reduction stamp are on the base. Now converted into a table lamp, and a pair to NT 515074.
Full description
Ferdinand Barbedienne is an important figure in the history of sculpture, not as an original sculptor in his own right, but rather for the enormous bronze-casting business he developed. The largest such firm in 19th-century Europe, Barbedienne revolutionised the practice of reproducing and publishing vast numbers of bronze sculptures in editions advertised through regularly-updated printed catalogues. Ferdinand Barbedienne began his career as an apprentice to a Parisian papermaker and by 1834 was running a successful business as a wallpaper manufacturer. In 1838, he changed direction, entering into a partnership, called Collas & Barbedienne, with Achille Collas (1795–1859), who had invented a method for making reductions of sculpture and who, at an exhibition in 1839, won a silver medal for his reduction of the Venus de Milo. The firm, which from 1851 became known simply as Barbedienne, specialised in reproductions of antique and modern sculpture, famous classical antiquities and works by sculptors ranging from Michelangelo to Antoine-Louis Barye. It expanded rapidly, coming to employ around 300 people and marketing through its printed catalogues some 1,200 subjects. Other specialisms included portrait busts of famous people from history and a wide range of decorative utensils and furniture in various historicising styles. Barbedienne also enjoyed great success at the international exhibitions which were held in London, Paris and other European cities, from the Great Exhibition of 1851 onwards. Michelangelo’s two marble figures of Slaves have been among the highlights of the Musée du Louvre’s collections, since they were seized during the French Revolution from the descendants of Cardinal Richelieu (Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, 1585-1642). The two figures were begun by Michelangelo in 1513-15 for his unrealised project for the tomb of Pope Julius II, but were not in the end used, since they could not be fitted into the reduced design. Like so many of Michelangelo’s sculptures, they remained uncompleted. In 1550 they were given to King Henri II of France, who in turn presented them to the Connétable Anne de Montmorency. By 1632 they were in the possession of Cardinal Richelieu. The powerful emotive yearning in the two figures in the Louvre caught nineteenth-century imagination; the present figure, straining to loosen the bonds that restrain him, came to be known as the Rebellious Slave, whilst the other figure, who stretches upwards with a yearning expression, was known as the Dying Slave. The Dying Slave first appears in Barbedienne’s catalogues in 1855, whilst the Rebellious Slave only begins to feature in them from 1862. With the technical assistance of Collas, Barbedienne was able to offer in his catalogues bronze casts at different sizes, life size and in a range of sizes of reduction. Thus, he offered both of Michelangelo’s figures at life size (209 cm. for the Rebellious Slave, and 228 cm. for the Dying Slave), but also at 2/3, 2/5, 3/5, 3/10 and 2/10. The Anglesey Abbey casts are the last, smallest size. They are marked with one of the foundry signatures used by Barbedienne as well as the circular stamp recording the use of Achille Collas’s reduction process. The use of this stamp dates the casts to the late nineteenth century (Rionnet, Barbedienne, p. 513). Barbedienne’s reductions of Michelangelo’s Slaves against Ionic columns were not advertised in the firm’s catalogues, and are thought therefore to have been the result of some special commission (Rionnet, Barbedienne, p. 137). As Florence Rionnet has noted, the combination of these heavy and expressive sculptures with the slender Ionic column is not a very happy one. Another pair has appeared on the art market, this time mounted on black stone plinths (Art nouveau, Art Déco, Sotheby’s New York, 22-23 July 1981, lot 386). A Barbedienne reduction, this time on a larger scale, of another famous sculpture in the Louvre, the so-called ‘Genius of Eternal Repose’, may be seen in the gardens at Anglesey Abbey (NT 515122). Jeremy Warren 2019
Provenance
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 (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
On back of base, signature (in the wax model): F. BARBEDIENNE. FONDEUR. On side of base, foundry stamp, in centre profile bust of Achille Collas, around this the legends: REDUCTION MÉCANIQUE/A. COLLAS/[BREVETÉ – largely obliterated]
Makers and roles
Ferdinand Barbedienne (Calvados 1810 - Paris 1892), founder Michelangelo Buonarroti ( Caprese Michelangelo 1475 - Rome 1564) , artist
References
Christie, Manson & Woods 1971: The National Trust, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge. Inventory: Furniture, Textiles, Porcelain, Bronzes, Sculpture and Garden Ornaments’, 1971, p. 149. Rionnet 2016: Florence Rionnet, Les Bronzes Barbedienne. L’œuvre d’une dynastie de Fondeurs (1834-1954), Paris 2016, p. 137, p. 228, no. 156.