Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

Berlin, Königliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste und Mechanischen Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1797, no. 238

This pair of fine reliefs exemplifies Parent's expert use of undercutting and micro-carving techniques to render the vibrancy and delicacy of nature. These remarkable medallions, each carved from a single piece of limewood, testify Parent’s style and technique: they display the sculptor’s characteristic ability to carve limewood to create a variety of textures and depict plants, fruits, animals and insects with a startling level of realism.

Aubert Parent, a native of Cambrai, was an expert wood carver, sculptor, draftsman and architect who was trained under Etienne Pierre Adrien Gois (1731-1823) at the Académie Royale in Paris. Parent’s career was launched by the presentation of an elaborate masterpiece panel, entitled Allégorie de l’amour de Louis XVI pour ses sujets, to Louis XVI at Valenciennes, the artist’s native town, in 1777 (château de Versailles, inv. MV8614). Centred upon an elaborate vase filled with flowers, it is emblazoned with a large portrait medallion of Louis XVI, which is, in turn, flanked by cornucopiae and trophies. The King was so enamoured by Parent’s gift that he had it placed in his salle à manger intérieure at Versailles (the royal dining room) so that he might admire it every day.

The success of the Louis XVI led Parent to establish himself as the trompe-l’oeil wood carver par excellence for aristocratic patrons in France and abroad, including Catherine the Great of Russia. Collin Streeter concludes, ‘Launched by such public royal approval, Parent could hardly fail to succeed. The private commissions that he exhibited at the Salon de la Correspondence from 1779 to 1783 reveal a pattern of patrons belonging to court rather than Parisian circles’ (op. cit., p. 61). His magnificent Allegorical relief with a portrait of Catherine the Great was sold at Sotheby’s New York on 30 January 2014 as lot 134.

Following the fall of the French monarchy, Parent fled France, first to Switzerland and then to Prussia, where he produced a pair of high-relief flower bouquets dedicated to Frederick William II of Prussia which is today in Berlin’s Kunstgewerbemuseum (inv. nos. K3041 and K3042). Parent went on to become a member of the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts and exhibited at the Marstallgebäude on Unter den Linden between 1797 and 1812.

RELATED LITERATURE

C. Streeter, 'Two Carved Reliefs by Aubert Parent', in The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, vol. 13, 1985; A.-M. Kerneis, Aubert Parent: 1753-1835, Mémoire de maîtrise, Lille III, 1989; S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française au dix-huitième siècle, vol. II, Paris, 1911, p. 224-226; A. Maze-Sencier, Le Livre des collectionneurs, Paris, 1885, p. 660-662.