Bust Of Venus Of Arles After The Antique, C. 1802

Rare plaster bust of Venus of Arles after the antique preserved at the Louvre (MR 365) dating from 1802.
H. 70 cm
Bears the stamp "Musée Central des Arts" (1st stamp of the Louvre's casting creation workshop. Period between 1794 and 1802).
Traces of stitching, thick grain corresponding to plasters around 1800, irregular interior.
Perfect condition

Provenance:
-Probably purchased by the sculptor Pierre Cartellier on May 6, 1802 (See L'atelier de moulage du musée du Louvre : 1794-1928, 1996, p. 362)
-Château in Metz until 1971
-Private collection until today (bust cleaned by the owner after its purchase in 1971)


Foundation of the casting workshop at the time of the Musée central des arts (Louvre):

Just a few months after its foundation in 1793, the Muséum central des arts, which was to become the Louvre Museum, opened the casting workshop, the first public workshop in Europe. The new republican regime then wanted a wider distribution of copies of antiques. Counterfeits, made by many private workshops, were common at this time. Faced with the damage done to original works by insufficiently trained molders, a group of citizen molders signed the "petition of 13 Ventôse of the year II" (March 3, 1794), which they presented to the National Convention. The manifesto denounced "the ineptitude of these ignorant people [...]", and explained: "Under their greedy and barbaric hands, the very masterpieces of Antiquity, these monuments which have become the code of the proportions of nature and the principles of Beauty, disguised, mutilated, violated, crippled in every possible way, present after some time only mendacious translations likely to mislead the young student and unrecognizable even to art masters." The need then arose to establish strict control of castings, providing for the mandatory approval of molds or statues by their owners. Casting thus became a public service mission (Extract from L'atelier de moulage du musée du Louvre : 1794-1928, 1996).

Webography:
Document on the stamps of the Louvre's casting workshop: https://ateliers.grandpalaisrmn.fr/documents/Estampille.pdf