Importante et Rare torchère "modèle" orientaliste- staff des fonderies du Val d'Osne. XIX e s.

Here is a very rare "model" cast of a colored man in a "colonial" style mounted in a "torchere" and electrified. It comes from the foundry workshops of Val d'Osne (Haute Marne). This staff statue served as a model to reproduce the same subject in cast iron in order to adorn parks or the entrance halls of the large residences of the industrial bourgeoisie from the 1880s to 1900s. Standing on its circular base (signed Val D'Osne), the subject takes up the theme of the "noble savage" dear to the thought of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau then politically reinterpreted under the Third Republic to justify "the civilizing mission" in colonies. Very beautiful orientalist-inspired molding, "nervous" plastic and very realistic muscular details. The work here characterizes the gradual abandonment of neoclassicism then the introduction of art nouveau and modernism in French sculpture at the end of the reign of Napoleon III (1852-1870). To see if the model is listed in the catalog of Société Anonyme des Hauts-Fourneaux et Fonderies du Val-D'Osne (number and plate...)! Founded in 1836 by Jean-Pierre-Victor André, the Val d'Osne foundry specializes in monumental art fonts. On the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in 1851 in London at the Crystal Palace, the foundry achieved unparalleled notoriety. Later, present at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, she designed the four large gilded bronze sets of the Alexandre III bridge in Paris then the surrounds designed by Guimard for the Paris metro. Accompanying the French "de-industrialization" of the 1980s, the site permanently closed its doors and completed its production in 1986. Rare and very decorative subject.