Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi

FRÉDERIC AUGUSTE BARTHOLDI (Colmar, 1834-Paris, 1904).
"Les sept souabes, le maire était un lievre".
Patinated bronze.
Signed.
Measurements: 25 x 39 x 19 cm.

The legend of the seven Swabians is one of the German folk tales collected by Ludwig Bechstein in his Märchenbuch (Storybook), very famous on the other side of the Rhine. The story is about seven naive villagers eager to cover themselves in glory with a feat worthy of the labors of Hercules. They decided to kill the horrible monster that, they were convinced, spread terror in the surrounding countryside.

Armed with a long pike, they set out to meet the dragon. Suddenly, two ears peeked out from behind a bush: those of a hare, which ran away frightened. Discouraged, the companions returned to their homes, where they were poorly received by their wives.

In this sculptural group, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi takes the anecdote and gives it a personal stamp based on his narrative ingenuity and technical mastery to pour into bronze the freshness of the popular anecdote. It is known that Bartholdi owned a copy of the 12th edition of the Märchenbuch, published in Leipzig in 1853. It was also the first, illustrated with 174 woodcuts based on the drawings of Ludwig Richter (Dresden, 1803-1884), a leading figure in the graphic art of German Romanticism. Bartholdi's sculpture reproduced, in rounded bulk, with variations and creativity in the details, Richter's engraving illustrating the tale of the Seven Swabians.

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was a French sculptor and painter. In 1853, Bartholdi submitted a sculptural group on the theme of the Good Samaritan to the Paris Salon of 1853. The statue was later recreated in bronze. Two years after his Salon debut, his hometown of Colmar commissioned him to create a bronze sculpture of Jean Rapp, a Napoleonic general. In 1855 and 1856, Bartholdi traveled through Yemen and Egypt with fellow travelers such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and other "orientalist" painters. The trip sparked Bartholdi's interest in colossal sculpture.In 1869, Bartholdi returned to Egypt to propose the construction of a new lighthouse at the entrance to the newly completed Suez Canal. The lighthouse, which was to be called Egypt Brings Light to Asia and was in the form of a huge draped figure holding a torch, was not commissioned. Both the khedive and Lesseps rejected Bartholdi's statue proposal, citing its high cost.