Antoine-Louis Barye

ANTOINE-LOUIS BARYE (France, 1795 - 1875).
"Ocelot devouring a heron".
Patinated bronze.
Signed on the back.
Numbered on the inside.
Measurements: 18 x 30 x 15,5 cm.

Sculptural group in bronze representing an ocelot fiercely devouring a heron. The feline sinks its teeth with vehemence, which prints a violent gesture and a dominant attitude, which are worked with great technical audacity and anatomical precision.

A key sculptor of French Romanticism, Barye began his training with his father, a goldsmith, and later expanded it with the masters François Joseph Bosio and Antoine-Jean Gros, at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he entered in 1818. Especially appreciated were his animalistic sculptures, largely initiators of the genre. He had his own foundry, collaborated with Viollet-le-Duc on a project commissioned by Napoleon III and was the teacher of Auguste Rodin. He presented his works at the Paris Salon, and created monuments such as the "Lion with Serpent" in the Tuileries Garden (1833), commissioned by the king. He is currently represented in the Louvre and Orsay Museums in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Albertina in Vienna, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., among other museums around the world.