The Toilet Of Venus, By Auguste Moreau, Circa 1880

Exceptional sculpture representing the toilet of Venus by Auguste Moreau. 3 little putti help the goddess to get ready.

The toilet of Venus has inspired several artists such as the master of the Rococo style, François Boucher, who executed his famous oil on canvas produced in 1751: Venus seated naked on a sumptuous rococo sofa, in a sumptuous interior whose hangings reveal in the background the foliage of a garden. Three little putti accompany the goddess and help her to get ready, one arranging her hair, the other passing her a ribbon and, below, the third lifting pearl necklaces from a silver dish.

Our bronze is an old edition dating from 1880 and it has a superb light brown patina.



Biography Auguste Louis Mathurin MOREAU (1834-1917)
Auguste MOREAU belongs to the Moreau family, a dynasty of 19th and early 20th century sculptors. He is the son of Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Joseph Moreau and the younger brother of sculptors Hippolyte Moreau and Mathurin Moreau. While his parents ran a café-guinguette, Le Salon de Mars in Saint-Saulve, the young Auguste was indistinguishable from the children of the village and was a dull schoolboy. He meets Auguste Meurice, a painter and decorator from Valenciennes who frequents his parents' establishment and befriends him. By this frequentation, he made the acquaintance of several students of the Academy of painting of Valenciennes and around 16 years old enrolled in the Academy. He follows the courses of Julien Poitier. He executed portraits of his entourage and of the villagers that he managed to sell, first at affordable prices, then better and better, and obtained a few commissions for religious subjects for the churches of the region. He perfected himself through practice and became a sought-after local painter. From 1872, he sent paintings to the Salon des arts valenciennes and was elected a member of the Society of Agriculture, Sciences and Arts of Valenciennes. In 1873, he made his first shipment to the Paris Salon; he will then be present there almost every year but will not win any prizes. Until 1880, he signed his paintings "Auguste Moreau", he then added the name of his wife "Deschanvres" to avoid confusion with namesakes. In 1902, he obtained an important commission for a series of portraits of the archbishops of Cambrai1. He was named pontifical knight in the order of Saint-Grégoire-le-Grand, probably in recognition of the many portraits he made of dignitaries of the Catholic Church in the North. Genre painter and portrait painter, Auguste Moreau-Deschanvres never left his native region where he had found all his inspiration. Shortly after his death, from March 23 to April 6, 1913, 150 paintings and drawings were exhibited in his studio and put up for sale.