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Lot Essay
In February 1849, a caricature by the well-known cartoonist Nadar appeared in the satirical Parisian journal La Revue Comique. The subject of the sketch, ten politicians of the Second Empire, balancing precariously atop one another; its title La Pyramide Humaine. In 1881, two years before his death, Paul-Gustave Doré exhibited one of his few sculptures at the Cercle de l'Union Artistique, on the Place Vendôme, Paris. The subject of the work, ten acrobats supporting one another in a feat of superhuman strength; its title, La Pyramide Humaine. That the work drew some inspiration from the earlier cartoon seems undeniable; after all, Nadar became one of Doré's earliest acquaintances after the latter's arrival in Paris in 1847. However, this intriguing composition, imbued with a sense of originality previously unseen in 19th century sculpture, is by far greater measure an outward expression of the extraordinary persona of its creator.
On arriving in Paris from his native Strasburg, aged 15, success was almost immediate for Doré: he was taken on by Charles Philipon, founder of the publishing house, Aubert & Cie, and set to work, on the considerable first-job salary of 5,000 francs per annum, on caricatures for the forthcoming title Journal Pour Rire. Within eight years the young Doré had become a highly successful book-illustrator, achieving notoriety with his 1854 illustrated version of Rabelais and with Dupont's Le Juif Errant and Balzac's Contes Drolatiques shortly afterwards. Notwithstanding his prolific output, Doré was not content to earn fame and wealth simply as an illustrator and, although having never received any formal training, he began to seek recognition as a painter, predominantly of large historical canvases. His first oils were exhibited at the Salon in 1851 and during the next 25 years the greater part of his time was devoted, with measured success, to this medium.
It was only in the mid-1870s that Doré turned to a new form of expression and began to sculpt. His first Salon entry in this new medium, entitled La Parque et l'Amour (Fate and Love) was exhibited in 1877. Highly allegorical, the group depicted the veiled elderly figure of Atropos, one of the Three Fates, brandishing a pair of scissors, about to cut the fine thread of life held by the naked adolescent figure of Love. The work was relatively well received by critics, but if there were a few who failed simply to comprehend its symbolism, there were many more who regarded it as merely an amateurish venture by a celebrated illustrator into the alien world of sculpture and who, therefore, struggled to acknowledge the seriousness of its author's intent. Not one to be dissuaded, Doré exhibited a second sculpture, another allegorical work, at the Salon the following year. In La Gloire (Fame), the eponymous female is depicted thrusting a dagger, concealed behind a laurel branch, into the heart of the naked youth supported in her arms. Despite being given central position in the Salon sculpture garden, failure to interpret the meaning of La Gloire was again much the reason for its limited success with the critics.
Allegories aside, the one incontrovertible theme pervading these first two works and subsequent Salon entries, The Terror (1879) and The Madonna (1880), is that of the vulnerable male in the arms of the stronger and older female. Contemporary and later biographers have made much of the unshakeable bond between Doré and his mother: she could not have encouraged him more with his art and, in turn, his filial devotion was unbounded. Following the premature death of Doré's father in 1849, widow, son and childhood nurse settled into the large house inherited by Madame Doré on the rue Saint-Dominique in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. There, Doré was the single recipient of the often stifling attentions of these two over-poweringly affectionate women. Although Doré's life was not without passionate affairs, not surprisingly, there were none that had sufficient strength to wean him from the certainty of affection at home.
Whilst these early compositions may demonstrate Doré's emotional dependency on his mother, on a wider plain each, in its depiction of man subjected to some greater force, symbolizes the fragility and transience of life in general. The same cannot be said of La Pyramide Humaine, by far Doré's most intriguing work, exhibited in 1881. In direct contrast to the previous theme lamenting the futility of life, here, in a vertical display of physical strength and equilibrium, Doré celebrates man's admirable attempts at combatting that futility through personal achievement. It is no coincidence that in giving form to such a sentiment he should choose a subject so close to his heart. From his earliest youth, Doré was remarkable for his skill as an acrobat, and this became an obsession that lasted the whole of his life. His studio on the rue Bayard had formerly been a gymnasium and retained a trapeze hanging from the ceiling. Albert Wolff, an early friend, recalled times spent there: "Here in his studio, once a week, were held the merriest imaginable meetings of artists and littérateurs. We had music; amateur circus scenes; clowns walking on their hands; gymnasts, like flies hanging head downwards from the ceiling". Highly sociable, Doré's entrances to the soirées held by Théophile Gautier or Edmond de Goncourt would invariably be made on hands rather than feet. Ironically, the unveiling of La Pyramide Humaine virtually coincided with the death of Doré's mother in March 1881. Had the latter died barely a few months earlier, it is doubtful, given the state of morbid melancholy into which the artist fell and from which he never truly recovered, that such an optimistic work, if in fact already conceived, would ever have reached completion.
In 1885, two years after his death, the contents of Doré's atelier were auctioned. Among the lots sold were three bronze casts of La Pyramide Humaine: one of 129 cm., a second of 90 cm. and the third of 58 cm. Although many of Doré's plaster models were cast in bronze by the Parisian fondeur Thiébaut and bear the firm's stamp, in the absence of any such stamp in the case of La Pyramide Humaine, it is not known for certain by whom the work was edited. Interestingly, however, the present large cast, together with a known example of the smaller version, bears the stamp 'Propriété de A. Sichel, 11 R. Pigalle, Paris'. Theoretically, this implies that casting rights were owned by Auguste Sichel, who was not actually a fondeur himself, but was, together with his brother Philippe, a major dealer in Japanese and oriental art at that address. In reality, however, the three models in the Vente Doré appear to have been sold together with casting rights and, in descending order of size, were purchased by a Monsieur Coolidge, Alexandre Dumas fils and a Monsieur Schwarz. Other than the present cast, one other example of the 129 cm. model is known (it is possibly the cast originally purchased by Coolidge) and is to be found in the collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida. Curiously, the latter does not have the Sichel stamp, but does have the addition of a small mat below the base figure of the pyramide. A contemporary photograph of Doré's original plaster model (no longer extant) clearly shows the absence of any mat and it can therefore be surmised that the present, extremely fine cast pre-dates both the restored Sarasota version and, probably, Doré's death.
The provenance of the present bronze can be traced with certainty back to 1899, when it was purchased at Christie's on 28 January by the grandfather of the present owner's late husband. In 1899 the sculpture was sold by the widow of the late Alfred Morrison, who had died two years beforehand. Fortunate enough to have inherited a vast fortune on the death of his father, a self-made millionaire entrepreneur, Morrison spent his life collecting and commissioning works of art to decorate the sumptuous Owen Jones-designed interiors of his homes at Fonthill House, Wiltshire, and 16 Carlton House Terrace, London. Much of the collection, including a large quantity of Japanese art, was sold at Christie's between Morrison's death and the turn of the century. In the absence of any detailed record or inventory of the collection, one can only speculate as to where certain pieces were purchased. However, it is more than likely that Morrison would have had dealings with the Sichel brothers in Paris, perhaps regularly buying Japanese art from them, and as such it is equally feasible that it was from the same gallery that he acquired La Pyramide Humaine.
Modern day commentators on 19th century sculpture have repeatedly classed La Pyramide Humaine as a unique work of its time and one completely without precedent both in subject-matter and conception. Paradoxically, and unlike other classic sculptural icons of the period, such as Mercié's Gloria Victis or Carpeaux's Génie de la Danse, both reproduced in their thousands, the extreme originality of Doré's creation was limited to a mere handful of bronze casts, making the appearance now of such a fine and large example a true rarity.
We are most grateful to Mr Samuel Clapp and the staff at the Centre Documentation du Musée d'Orsay, Paris, for their generous assistance in the research for this lot.
On arriving in Paris from his native Strasburg, aged 15, success was almost immediate for Doré: he was taken on by Charles Philipon, founder of the publishing house, Aubert & Cie, and set to work, on the considerable first-job salary of 5,000 francs per annum, on caricatures for the forthcoming title Journal Pour Rire. Within eight years the young Doré had become a highly successful book-illustrator, achieving notoriety with his 1854 illustrated version of Rabelais and with Dupont's Le Juif Errant and Balzac's Contes Drolatiques shortly afterwards. Notwithstanding his prolific output, Doré was not content to earn fame and wealth simply as an illustrator and, although having never received any formal training, he began to seek recognition as a painter, predominantly of large historical canvases. His first oils were exhibited at the Salon in 1851 and during the next 25 years the greater part of his time was devoted, with measured success, to this medium.
It was only in the mid-1870s that Doré turned to a new form of expression and began to sculpt. His first Salon entry in this new medium, entitled La Parque et l'Amour (Fate and Love) was exhibited in 1877. Highly allegorical, the group depicted the veiled elderly figure of Atropos, one of the Three Fates, brandishing a pair of scissors, about to cut the fine thread of life held by the naked adolescent figure of Love. The work was relatively well received by critics, but if there were a few who failed simply to comprehend its symbolism, there were many more who regarded it as merely an amateurish venture by a celebrated illustrator into the alien world of sculpture and who, therefore, struggled to acknowledge the seriousness of its author's intent. Not one to be dissuaded, Doré exhibited a second sculpture, another allegorical work, at the Salon the following year. In La Gloire (Fame), the eponymous female is depicted thrusting a dagger, concealed behind a laurel branch, into the heart of the naked youth supported in her arms. Despite being given central position in the Salon sculpture garden, failure to interpret the meaning of La Gloire was again much the reason for its limited success with the critics.
Allegories aside, the one incontrovertible theme pervading these first two works and subsequent Salon entries, The Terror (1879) and The Madonna (1880), is that of the vulnerable male in the arms of the stronger and older female. Contemporary and later biographers have made much of the unshakeable bond between Doré and his mother: she could not have encouraged him more with his art and, in turn, his filial devotion was unbounded. Following the premature death of Doré's father in 1849, widow, son and childhood nurse settled into the large house inherited by Madame Doré on the rue Saint-Dominique in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. There, Doré was the single recipient of the often stifling attentions of these two over-poweringly affectionate women. Although Doré's life was not without passionate affairs, not surprisingly, there were none that had sufficient strength to wean him from the certainty of affection at home.
Whilst these early compositions may demonstrate Doré's emotional dependency on his mother, on a wider plain each, in its depiction of man subjected to some greater force, symbolizes the fragility and transience of life in general. The same cannot be said of La Pyramide Humaine, by far Doré's most intriguing work, exhibited in 1881. In direct contrast to the previous theme lamenting the futility of life, here, in a vertical display of physical strength and equilibrium, Doré celebrates man's admirable attempts at combatting that futility through personal achievement. It is no coincidence that in giving form to such a sentiment he should choose a subject so close to his heart. From his earliest youth, Doré was remarkable for his skill as an acrobat, and this became an obsession that lasted the whole of his life. His studio on the rue Bayard had formerly been a gymnasium and retained a trapeze hanging from the ceiling. Albert Wolff, an early friend, recalled times spent there: "Here in his studio, once a week, were held the merriest imaginable meetings of artists and littérateurs. We had music; amateur circus scenes; clowns walking on their hands; gymnasts, like flies hanging head downwards from the ceiling". Highly sociable, Doré's entrances to the soirées held by Théophile Gautier or Edmond de Goncourt would invariably be made on hands rather than feet. Ironically, the unveiling of La Pyramide Humaine virtually coincided with the death of Doré's mother in March 1881. Had the latter died barely a few months earlier, it is doubtful, given the state of morbid melancholy into which the artist fell and from which he never truly recovered, that such an optimistic work, if in fact already conceived, would ever have reached completion.
In 1885, two years after his death, the contents of Doré's atelier were auctioned. Among the lots sold were three bronze casts of La Pyramide Humaine: one of 129 cm., a second of 90 cm. and the third of 58 cm. Although many of Doré's plaster models were cast in bronze by the Parisian fondeur Thiébaut and bear the firm's stamp, in the absence of any such stamp in the case of La Pyramide Humaine, it is not known for certain by whom the work was edited. Interestingly, however, the present large cast, together with a known example of the smaller version, bears the stamp 'Propriété de A. Sichel, 11 R. Pigalle, Paris'. Theoretically, this implies that casting rights were owned by Auguste Sichel, who was not actually a fondeur himself, but was, together with his brother Philippe, a major dealer in Japanese and oriental art at that address. In reality, however, the three models in the Vente Doré appear to have been sold together with casting rights and, in descending order of size, were purchased by a Monsieur Coolidge, Alexandre Dumas fils and a Monsieur Schwarz. Other than the present cast, one other example of the 129 cm. model is known (it is possibly the cast originally purchased by Coolidge) and is to be found in the collection of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida. Curiously, the latter does not have the Sichel stamp, but does have the addition of a small mat below the base figure of the pyramide. A contemporary photograph of Doré's original plaster model (no longer extant) clearly shows the absence of any mat and it can therefore be surmised that the present, extremely fine cast pre-dates both the restored Sarasota version and, probably, Doré's death.
The provenance of the present bronze can be traced with certainty back to 1899, when it was purchased at Christie's on 28 January by the grandfather of the present owner's late husband. In 1899 the sculpture was sold by the widow of the late Alfred Morrison, who had died two years beforehand. Fortunate enough to have inherited a vast fortune on the death of his father, a self-made millionaire entrepreneur, Morrison spent his life collecting and commissioning works of art to decorate the sumptuous Owen Jones-designed interiors of his homes at Fonthill House, Wiltshire, and 16 Carlton House Terrace, London. Much of the collection, including a large quantity of Japanese art, was sold at Christie's between Morrison's death and the turn of the century. In the absence of any detailed record or inventory of the collection, one can only speculate as to where certain pieces were purchased. However, it is more than likely that Morrison would have had dealings with the Sichel brothers in Paris, perhaps regularly buying Japanese art from them, and as such it is equally feasible that it was from the same gallery that he acquired La Pyramide Humaine.
Modern day commentators on 19th century sculpture have repeatedly classed La Pyramide Humaine as a unique work of its time and one completely without precedent both in subject-matter and conception. Paradoxically, and unlike other classic sculptural icons of the period, such as Mercié's Gloria Victis or Carpeaux's Génie de la Danse, both reproduced in their thousands, the extreme originality of Doré's creation was limited to a mere handful of bronze casts, making the appearance now of such a fine and large example a true rarity.
We are most grateful to Mr Samuel Clapp and the staff at the Centre Documentation du Musée d'Orsay, Paris, for their generous assistance in the research for this lot.