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Amand Honoré Désiré BARRE (1834- 1922 ?)
Quaerens quem Devor…
See original version (French)
570
-
Amand Honoré Désiré BARRE (1834- 1922 ?)
Quaerens quem Devor…
See original version (French)
Estimate €10,000 - €15,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Amand Honoré Désiré BARRE (1834- 1922 ?)
Quaerens quem Devoret , previously entitled "Demain!
Model created in 1877
Monumental cast iron with brown patina richly shaded with red
Signed "A. BARRE" on the side of the terrace
Bears the foundry mark Antoine Durenne 'A DURENNE SOMMEVOIRE'.
H. 185 cm and terrace dim.: 76 x 60 cm ;
weight: approx.480 kg
Exhibition:
- The bronzed plaster model exhibited at the 1879 Salon, under no. 4780.
Related literature:
Musée du Vieux manoir -Pôle Muséal et des arts plastiques, Jeune fauve se découvrant les cornes,
Amand Honoré Barré, catalogue published online by Lisieux Normandie, communauté d'agglomération, ss d.
Presented at the 1879 Salon in its original plaster version, this impressively realistic work depicting a pardoned Communard returning from the penal colony caused a sensation. The newspaper Le Petit
caporal published on 2 June 1879, in its brief "Choses du Jour" (p.1), its enthusiastic opinion on the subject
the subject:
"The sculptor Barré exhibited a bronze plaster statue in front of which the crowd stopped in amazement.
It is a Communard returning from Nouméa. Callot never invented a more sinister beggar, covered in hyperbolic rags
Covered in hyperbolic rags, revealing solid muscles through their tears, the "pardoned" advances threateningly, a gnarled stick in his hand, his eye full of threats..: Quaerens quem devoret," wrote the artist at the base of his statue, "is hardly reassuring. Readers, my friends, don't go to the Salon without seeing "he who will devour us".
In his preamble, the journalist reminded us that the work has a notoriously political dimension. Its creator, Amand Honoré Désiré Barré, is known for his politically committed works.
The artist first trained with Hector Edmond Le Harivel-Durocher, a native of the Orne region. After moving to Paris, he exhibited works in a fairly academic vein at the Salon from 1868 onwards. His Jeune faune se regardant les cornes (marble version presented at the 1874 Salon) and his Rêve d'Armide (Armide's Dream), selected for the 1878 Universal Exhibition, won him a certain amount of recognition. The artist was also a politically committed poet and writer, promoting the Bonapartist parliamentary group "L'appel au peuple" alongside his friend the politician Jules Amigues (1829-1883).
Describing himself as a "man of order", his depiction of the convict was initially refused at the 1877 Salon. Initially titled "Demain" (Tomorrow), this threatening work predicted the danger of a new Commune and the bloody disorder that would inevitably ensue if the Communards deported to New Caledonia were pardoned.
The bronze plaster version of the work was apparently displayed for a time in the window of a shop in the Rue de la Paix in Paris. But its presence caused such a stir that the shop was closed and the work removed. Two years later, in 1879, Le forçat fraîchement libéré du bagne de Toulon (The Convict Freshly Released from the Toulon Prison), as indicated on the marker, was finally accepted at the Salon.
It was a remarkable embodiment of Jean Valjean, the hero of Victor Hugo's famous novel published in 1862 (see the illustration by Gustave Brion, Jean Valjean à sa sortie du bagne en 1815). It now bears the Latin title "Quaerens quem devoret" ("seeking someone to devour"). The threat remained, but the status of convict now took precedence over that of
communard.
The title can also be found on this unique cast, of remarkable quality, made by Antoine Durenne's famous art and ornament foundry in Sommevoire (Haute-Marne).
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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