Bronze Representative Aeneas Carrying His Father Anchises Leaving Troy After Lepautre And Girardon

Aeneas saving his father Anchises and his son Ascanius from the burning of Troy, by Pierre Lepautre (1660-1744), after a model by François Girardon (1628-1715) Bronze with medal patina. H. 65 cm, L. 23 cm, D. 25 cm late 19th century Barbedienne foundry, reduction stamp Collas this group in bronze with medal patina showing Aeneas, son of Venus and Anchises, battleship and helmet, leaving Troy in flames by carrying his father followed by his young son Ascagne, constitutes a remarkable and dramatic composition of baroque obedience, influenced by Giambologna and Le Bernin, created by two of the greatest sculptors of the end of the reign of the Sun King, François Girardon and Pierre Lepautre . Taken from the Aeneid, unfinished poem by Virgil, the group evokes the flight of Aeneas, when Troy fell into the hands of the Achaeans thanks to the famous ruse of Odysseus. Aeneas is represented in a prancing position, resting on his left leg, stepping over a fragment of architecture symbolizing the destruction of the city of Troy. He carries his father Anchises in his arms, the latter raising his eyes to heaven, simply dressed in a drape around his waist, wearing a cap, and holding the Palladium, the image of Pallas who will become the sacred emblem of the Romans. With his right hand stretched out behind Aeneas' back, Anchises holds the wrist of young Ascanius, turned towards the city and desperately looking for his mother Crüse, daughter of Priam, who has disappeared. The group rests on a foliated mound of square section and slightly convex. It is a reduction of the original in white marble produced between 1697 and 1716 by Pierre Lepautre from a wax sketch entrusted to him by François Girardon in 1696. Made during the artist's stay at the Académie de France in Rome from 1697, transported to France in 1715 to adorn the garden of the Château de Marly, the work now kept in the Louvre Museum, signed P. LE-PAUTRE FECIT, 1716, was completed with the help of Jacques Bousseau. A terracotta model in reduction of the original marble work is now kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In the 18th century, Lepautre himself had kept a copy in his workshop and Lalive de Jully, the famous introducer of Louis XV's ambassadors, also had another.

bronze in good condition of the house, some accidents to the patina (whitish traces, mainly in the hollows and on the back) , trace of the assembly visible on the child's arm (see photos)