CAST BY FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE FROM THE MODEL BY JEAN-BAPTISTE CLESINGER, LAST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Although French, Auguste Clésinger was working in Italy when he presented Helen for the first time in 1860 as a marble bust. Encouraged by the response, he created a full-length marble of the heroine and exhibited it in the Paris Salon of 1861. Ferdinand Barbedienne, the first founder to sign commercial contracts with sculptors, bought the advance rights to reproduce Clésinger's entire oeuvre and produced bronze copies of both the full-length Helen and the bust, which he displayed at prestigious events such as the International Exhibition in London, 1862. The present lot is the largest of Barbedienne's bronze Helens and is the same size as Clésinger's original marble displayed in Rome in 1860.