Statue Bronze Of Count d'Orsay Signed Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892)

Large 19th century bronze sculpture signed F. BARDEDIENNE (Ferdinand Barbedienne 1810-1892) depicting the full-length portrait of a dandy aristocrat Count D'Orsay (Alfred d'Orsay 1801 - 1852) standing dignifiedly, one hand in his frock coat at the style of Napoleon Bonaparte, while in the other he holds his top hat and his cane, the whole resting on a molded marble terrace. Dimensions: 47 cm high X 21 cm wide X 21 cm deep. Alfred D'Orsay was born in Paris on September 4, 1801. French painter, sculptor, dandy and patron. He was the posthumous son of the farmer-general Pierre Grimod du Fort, lord of Orsay, who died in 1748 leaving a considerable fortune: a private mansion in Paris, the Château D'Orsay and a very interesting collection of works of art. . Alfred D'Orsay was a brilliant conversationalist, a talented painter and sculptor, he was the arbiter of elegance under the July Monarchy. His affair with Lady Blessington, then his marriage to Lady Harriet Gardiner, the latter's daughter-in-law, hit the headlines on both sides of the Channel. Very close to Louis-Napoléon, he was appointed director of fine arts. The Carnavalet museum has a bust of him by Lamartine. Ferdinand BARBEDIENNE settled in Paris in 1822, very interested in the innovative techniques favored by the government of Louis-Philippe, in fact he actively participated in the romantic movement. The taste for history and that of Gallo-Roman archeology spread at the same time as that of ancient bronzes. His associate, Achille Collas, who had invented a mechanical process making it possible to mathematically reproduce, using a reducer or pantograph, sculptures in the round. The Collas et Barbedienne house marketed plaster reductions of the Venus de Milo for some time, then specialized in the production of antique bronzes. At the international exhibition in London in 1851, then at that in Paris in 1855, the house, registered under the name Barbedienne, won numerous medals. It then presents reductions based on the antique, the Renaissance, the 18th century and after certain modern sculptors such as Bosio, David d'Angers, Clesinger and Frémiet, with whom Barbedienne signed exclusive contracts.