Louis Etienné de Cocheret

LOUIS ETIENNÉ COCHERET (Amsterdam, 1829 - Rotterdam, 1882).
"French Sculpture of a Maiden with a Book, 1859.
Carrara marble.
Signed and dated.
Measurements: 85 x 71 x 43 cm.
The sculpture, made in Carrara marble, shows us a young maiden, seated on her crossed legs, delicately caressing the pages of an open book. She is presented before us with great sensitivity, contrasting the delicate folds of her dress with an unpolished base, thus enhancing the beauty of the figure. The aesthetic aspect of this sculpture enters into dialogue with its possible symbolic meaning, as her angelic figure and the book she carries suggest that the author sought the ideal representation of a muse dedicated to reading and knowledge. In this way, an admiration for the masters of the Italian Renaissance is combined with a following of the guidelines set by the great French 19th-century sculptors, this piece being a faithful follower of the Romantic movement. The impeccable state of preservation of the piece should not be overlooked, as it has not been damaged or broken. The sculptor, Louis Etienné Cocheret, was born in Amsterdam in 1829 and died in Rotterdam in 1882 (an obituary signed by his son on 2 August 1882 certifies the sculptor's last known location before his death). He was instructed in the multifaceted style of the Second Empire, recalling classical antiquity, the lessons of the Renaissance and the Symbolist and Romantic character of other movements of his time. We know of L. Etienné Cocheret's participation in the annual exhibition of paintings and other works by living artists in Amsterdam, a competition of great importance at the time (the exhibition was held for about a century in the Dutch capital). He took part in this competition in 1860, a year after he had created the marble sculpture in question. According to the catalogue of the exhibition, L. Cocheret entered a marble bust personifying spring and another personifying autumn; finally, he also exhibited a plaster statuette by means of a photograph (de photographie), an innovative element in a competition where some contestants criticised the presence of such highly modern means. A bronze sculpture of the goddess of destiny by Myray, now in the Lermontov Gallery in Russia, places E. Cocheret in Paris, as his signature on the sculpture is accompanied by the stamp of the workshop of Barbedienne, a French bronze artist and cabinetmaker who excelled in the Second Empire style. Thus we know that the artist, although he had his roots in Amsterdam, had a predominantly French influence on his sculptures. The presence of several deeply symbolic bronze sculptures signed by L. Cocheret, such as the aforementioned one (now in Russia) or two busts classified in 19th French sculpture, personifications of spring and autumn (now in a private collection), indicate that the artist liked to create sculptures with a symbolic meaning, in some cases with references to the ancient world transposed to his contemporaneity.