Antoine Louis BARYE (1795-1875) Lot n° 40

Theseus fighting the centaur Biénor, The Lapithe and the Centaur or A Centaur and a Lapithe (Title of the plaster model at the Salon) Bronze with green-brown patina H : 75 - W : 68 cm Signed Barye and F. Barbedienne Fondeur on the terrace Theseus fighting the centaur Biénor -subject borrowed from the Metamorphoses of Ovid- was ordered by the State in 1849 for Le Puy. The plaster was exhibited at the Salon the following year. The artist thus returned to the mythology he had adopted at the 1843 Salon with his Theseus fighting the Minotaur, a work refused by the jury. In 1850, the success was complete and Barye, with this work, exalted the tensions and dynamic oppositions, proper to his romantic vision. The original group of Theseus fighting Biénor was nearly one and a half meters high. Only five life-size proofs, executed during the artist's lifetime between 1857 and 1875, are known to exist. Given the success of this work, Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892) made four reductions, the first measuring 95 cm, the second 75 cm, the third 55 cm and the fourth 41.5 cm. The work has become one of the most emblematic of Barye's work and was chosen to top the monument to the artist erected in Paris. Bibliography Michel Poletti and Alain Richarme, Barye Catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Gallimard 2000, n° F33 pp. 109, 110. Pierre Kjellberg, Les Bronzes du XIXe, Éditions de l'Amateur, 1989, p.61. Stuart Pivar, The Barye Bronzes, Antique collectors' club, 1974, p. 69 n° F21.