Winter - Joseph Felon (1818-1897)

Original terracotta sculpture
inscribed on the base " JF " (for Joseph Félon)

France
circa 1875

height 39 cm
width 10,5 cm
depth 10,5 cm

This original terracotta sculpture is probably the "Modello" of the plaster statue of "Winter", presented by Joseph Félon at the 1876 Salon.

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Biography :
Joseph Félon (1818-1897) was a French painter and sculptor. He was a student in Bordeaux of the painter Pierre Lacour fils (1778-1859) and at the same time worked for the Bordeaux engraver Gaspard de Galard. He was not known to have a sculpture teacher in Bordeaux, but he worked as an engraver for several bronze makers. In 1839, Félon was admitted to the Paris School of Fine Arts in the painting and sculpture section. He presented a self-portrait at the Salon of 1840 and a plaster statuette the following year. Joseph Félon regularly sent paintings, sculptures and lithographs to the Salon from 1840 to 1896.

He settled in the South of France from 1884. Between 1885 and 1887, he was curator at the Cannes painting museum. Joseph Félon was professor of ornament and decorative composition at the School of Decorative Arts in Nice between 1891 and 1893.

In 1857, Joseph Félon was a cardboard maker for the stained glass windows of the Sainte-Perpétue and Sainte-Félicité churches in Nîmes, the creation of which was entrusted to the Avignon glass painter Frédéric Martin. It was by watching their execution that he learned to paint on glass. Félon was then responsible, from 1864, for the restoration of the glass roofs of the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church in Paris, then of stained glass windows for the Saint-Séverin church in Paris and the Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais church. In 1879, Félon was an honorary member of the corporation of glass painters.

Joseph Félon also created sculptures for the facades of the Richelieu Pavilion at the Louvre Palace (Justice and Fraternity, Prudence and Force, Truth and History), as well as at the Sorbonne, for the Sainte-Élisabeth and Saint-Étienne-du-Mont churches. He also created a Nymph riding a dolphin at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and two busts for the Institut de France. In Chambéry, at the castle of the Dukes of Savoy, a statue of Science adorns the grand staircase of the Savoie departmental council.

Joseph Félon finally settled in the South of France from 1884. Between 1885 and 1887, he was a curator at the Cannes painting museum. Between 1891 and 1893, he ended his career as professor of ornament and decorative composition at the School of Decorative Arts in Nice.