Antoine-Louis Barye

With Robert Bowman Ltd., London, 29 July 2002;

Where acquired.

The Three Graces were modeled as a component of the Candelabrum of Nine Lights part of the garniture commissioned by the Duc de Montpensier (1824-1890) in 1840 for a mantle-top ensemble to frame Barye's Roger and Angelica on the Hippogriff (current location unknown). According to Glenn F. Benge, "the female nude enters Barye's œuvre as a significant new theme in the candelabrum, a late complement to the heroic male nudes Barye had created as early as the Milo of Crotona medallion of 1819. Barye's Three Graces are not composed in the well-known arrangement of the ancient type in Siena (Libreria Piccolomini), for all three figures face inward toward the central shaft of the design, as in the ancient Roman The Three Nymphs as Caryatids, once in the Villa Borghese in Rome." 

The Three Graces which topped the candelabrum were then edited by Barye in a pair of shorter, six light candelabrum as well as in a pair of incense-burners, and the rarest-form, the present lot, a stand-alone group.

RELATED LITERATURE

M. Poletti and A. Richarme, Barye. Catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Paris, 2000, F 25 and C96, p. 98.