The Harlequin By Léon Mignon

Superb harlequin by Léon Mignon. Surely influenced by his Italian period. Léon Mignon's art is recognizable among all. An animal sculptor, he found inspiration in Italy where he stayed from 1872 to 1876 thanks to a grant from the Darchis Foundation. A studious student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Liège, he stood out for the execution of particularly successful busts, but if he did not completely abandon the representation of the faces of his peers, however famous they may be (Charlemagne, Saint-Hubert, Velbruck, Frère-Orban, Piercot, etc.), he mainly devoted his attention and his talent to the creation of horses, dromedaries, bison and especially bulls which earned him a perhaps unconscious fame, but a celebrity nonetheless: how many Walloon students have in fact paid homage, each in their own way, to the Bull Tamer purchased by the city of Liège to decorate the terraces of Avroy? Gold medalist at the Paris Salon in 1880, Li Toré is in fact the best-known work of Léon Mignon who also signed his opposite, on the Terrasses, The Plowing Ox at Rest, another monumental statue in bronze. Strangely, it was during his trip to Rome that this inspiration was born which led Mignon to create in terracotta a Combat of the Roman Bulls and the Bull of the Roman Campaign (works which were kept for years at the Museum of Walloon Art before it is permanently closed). His works earned Mignon the reputation of being the master of animal sculpture of his time. Installed in Paris from 1876 to 1884, Léon Mignon returned to Brussels under duress and force to carry out official orders from the government: this was the period of his busts, but also of the statue. Measurement excluding base 41.2cm