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Lot Essay
The story of Cleopatra, intertwining influence with intrigue and legend with fact, has inspired artists for centuries. The Napoleonic campaigns in Egypt in the early 19th century brought about a renewed interest in the celebrated queen which persisted through the period, and is here splendidly manifest in Clésinger’s exceptionally rare and powerfully seductive sculpture, Cléopâtre devant César. Representing Cleopatra presenting a flower to Caesar, Clésinger’s finely detailed, full-scale bronze fully encapsulates the goût égyptien of mid-19th century France.
A FABLED BEAUTY
The final heiress of Alexander the Great’s line, Cleopatra (68-30 B.C.) was a legendary and mysterious Queen of Egypt whose masterful diplomacy touched vast swaths of the globe and whose fabled love affairs with many of the period’s most important leaders including Julius Caesar and Mark Antony procured for her an important place in history. From the dawn of the Renaissance forward, Cleopatra has been frequently represented across the visual arts, and in the 19th century interest in the famed monarch surged, giving way to lavish and luxurious renderings of her by artists including Jean-Léon Gérôme, Alexandre Cabanel, Gustave Moreau and Auguste Clésinger.
In the 19th century, Cleopatra incarnated a romanticised vision of the Orient and Africa and was a symbol of exoticism. In addition, she presented artists with an opportunity to use the finest and most rare materials in their renderings of her: 'Le début du XIXe siècle voit fleurir le goût de l’exotisme dont l’Égyptienne devient l’un des symboles…Pour elle sont déployées toutes les richesses de l’Orient et de l’Afrique: perles, damas, mousselines, or, ivoire, ébène, plumes d’autruches, peaux de léopards… ' (J.-M. Humbert, M. Pantazzi and C. Ziegler, `Cléopâtre ou les séductions de l’Orient' in Egyptomania, ex. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1994, pp. 558-559).
This beautifully rendered figure represents the celebrated Egyptian Queen in her meeting with Julius Caesar, described by Plutarch in his Life of Caesar. According to Plutarch, Cleopatra, who hoped to secure an alliance with Rome, arranged to be smuggled into Caesar’s palace in Alexandria wrapped in lines. Here, she dramatically emerges from the drapes to present a flower to the great leader (Plutarch, 49:1-3). This meeting would ultimately lead to Cleopatra’s reinstatement to power, and a strong diplomatic relationship between the two great empires.
'CLÉOPÂTRE DEVANT CÉSAR' – A SALON DÉBUT
The model of Cléopâtre devant César was first exhibited at the Salon of 1886 as a life-size marble enriched with luxurious jewels by the firm, Froment-Meurice (no. 3313). The Salon work, on which the present bronze is based, depicts a powerful figure crowned by an elaborate headdress over luxurious tumbling braids, stepping forward from her cascading drapery and offering up a lotus flower as a sign of peace.
Cléopâtre devant César was subsequently listed as lot 1 in a sale of works by Clésinger at the Hôtel Drouot on 6 April 1870 where it was purchased by Monsieur Marnyhac, almost certainly the head of the eponymous bronze foundry Maison de Marnyhac & Cie. It is possible that Monsieur Marnyhac purchased the lot on behalf of a M. Paul Dalloz, as the latter acquired it for 30,000 francs. Clésinger’s Cléopâtre was later noted in the collection of M. Desfossés who lived at the villa Saïd, on the avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and who showed it at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 (A. Estignard, Clésinger, sa vie ses, œuvres, Paris, 1890, p. 167). Today, its whereabouts are unknown.
CLÉSINGER AND MARNYHAC
That the Salon marble was in the possession of Marnyhac in the years surrounding its creation is of great significance because the celebrated foundry would go on to make limited editions of Clésinger’s work including the present bronze. It is, therefore, possible that this Cléopâtre devant César was one of the first and finest examples of their celebrated partnership.
The Maison de Marnyhac & Cie. was one of the preeminent foundries of late 19th century Paris, and collaborated with many of the era’s leading sculptors and furniture makers to create luxurious works of art renowned for their exceptional casting and fine chasing. Clésinger had erstwhile partnered with Ferdinand Barbedienne to produce bronze reductions and editions of his works, but appears to have cut ties with the foundry after an 1867 dispute brought before the courts in Paris (J. de Caso, 'Serial Sculpture in Nineteenth-Century France', in J. Wasserman, ed., Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, ex. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975, no. 69, pp. 23-24). Clésinger subsequently signed a contract with Maison Marnyahc dated 23 February 1870, which stipulated that the foundry could sell works from his œuvre during his lifetime under the sole condition that the artist had approved of them by adding his signature to the models and, after his death, if a member of the French Institute did so in his stead (J. de Caso, op. cit., p. 16, no. 16).
In a departure from the 19th century practice of reproducing celebrated models, however, very few versions of Cléopâtre devant César are known. One other full-scale marble edition of this work created by Marnyhac and dated after 1873 is today in private French collection. Additionally, two smaller bronze editions of the present model are recorded: one measuring 77 cm. high, of which an example sold in a sale of Clésinger’s works on 26 February 1923 (lot 2), and another signed by Marnyhac and measuring 67 cm. high of which an example sold Sotheby’s, London, 14 December 2001, lot 153. The present lot is perhaps the only full-scale bronze of Cléopâtre devant César extant. It is photographed in a private Swiss collection in 1958 and 1968 (documentation, Musée d’Orsay, Paris).
AUGUSTE CLESINGER: `LE SCULPTEUR ENRAGÉ'
Clésinger was born the son of a sculptor, Georges-Philippe, in whose atelier he received his initial training. In 1832, he accompanied his father to Rome where he became the student of Bertel Thorvaldsen. Upon his return to France, he worked in the ateliers of a number of other sculptors, all the while navigating the political upheavals of 19th century France – the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire and the Third Republic – declaring allegiance to the successive regimes as he saw fit.
Clésinger simultaneously developed a reputation as a tempestuous virtuoso whose self-assured nature was widely discussed in contemporary Paris. Shortly before one Salon, he wrote to a friend that he predicted he would be named the first in that year’s exhibition in spite of all odds and thanks largely to his lofty social connections: 'Je crois…que je serai le premier au Salon de cette année…tout est mis en œuvre pour me faire échouer…Heureusement que j’ai su me ménager aussi des admirateurs et de bons amis, et mon succès est assuré.' (S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l’école française, Paris, 1914, vol. I, p. 394). The celebrated writer, Georges Sand, to whose daughter Clésinger was briefly married, also remarked on the artist’s frenetic nature, deeming him the 'sculpteur enragé' (cited in Y. Devaux, L’Univers des Bronzes, Paris, 1978, p. 185).
In the Salon of 1847, Clésinger showed perhaps his most famous work, Femme piquée par un serpent, a marble of a reclining, writhing female nude on a naturalistic base, which is today in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (RF 2053). This work, representing Apolline Sabatier (1822-1890) – muse of the famed poet Charles Baudelaire – caused a great scandal when it was shown at the Salon owing to its seductive pose and startling realism. However, it is today regarded as one of the artist’s most famous works and, through its sensual representation of the female form and painstaking attention to detail, it could be considered as a precursor to the present figure.
In his monograph on the artist, Estignard suggests that Cleopatra was a subject of particular interest to the artist for several years prior to the Salon of 1869. In 1861, Clésinger completed a sculpture of the dying Cleopatra, Cléopâtre mourante (A. Estignard, op. cit., Paris, 1890, p. 87). Later, after a hiatus from the Salon prompted by the cold reception for his works, he returned in 1869 with the marble that was the inspiration for the present bronze. Clésinger may have been influenced by the works of his contemporaries including Jean-Léon Gérôme’s painting of Cléopâtre et César which was shown at the Salon of 1866 and represents the Egyptian queen in a pose and state of undress very similar to that of the present figure (illustrated in Egyptomania, op. cit., no. 387, fig. 1, p. 574). However, according to Estignard, Clésinger sought, above all, with his Cléopâtre to show a figure in all her beauty, capable of disarming her enemies : 'il veut de nouveau la montrer dans toute sa beauté, dans tout son éclat, dans toute sa jeunesse; il fera une œuvre splendide qui désarmera ses ennemis' (Estignard, op. cit., p. 87). As time has shown and the present, exceptionally rare bronze attests, Clésinger’s exceptional work has retained its power.
A FABLED BEAUTY
The final heiress of Alexander the Great’s line, Cleopatra (68-30 B.C.) was a legendary and mysterious Queen of Egypt whose masterful diplomacy touched vast swaths of the globe and whose fabled love affairs with many of the period’s most important leaders including Julius Caesar and Mark Antony procured for her an important place in history. From the dawn of the Renaissance forward, Cleopatra has been frequently represented across the visual arts, and in the 19th century interest in the famed monarch surged, giving way to lavish and luxurious renderings of her by artists including Jean-Léon Gérôme, Alexandre Cabanel, Gustave Moreau and Auguste Clésinger.
In the 19th century, Cleopatra incarnated a romanticised vision of the Orient and Africa and was a symbol of exoticism. In addition, she presented artists with an opportunity to use the finest and most rare materials in their renderings of her: 'Le début du XIXe siècle voit fleurir le goût de l’exotisme dont l’Égyptienne devient l’un des symboles…Pour elle sont déployées toutes les richesses de l’Orient et de l’Afrique: perles, damas, mousselines, or, ivoire, ébène, plumes d’autruches, peaux de léopards… ' (J.-M. Humbert, M. Pantazzi and C. Ziegler, `Cléopâtre ou les séductions de l’Orient' in Egyptomania, ex. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1994, pp. 558-559).
This beautifully rendered figure represents the celebrated Egyptian Queen in her meeting with Julius Caesar, described by Plutarch in his Life of Caesar. According to Plutarch, Cleopatra, who hoped to secure an alliance with Rome, arranged to be smuggled into Caesar’s palace in Alexandria wrapped in lines. Here, she dramatically emerges from the drapes to present a flower to the great leader (Plutarch, 49:1-3). This meeting would ultimately lead to Cleopatra’s reinstatement to power, and a strong diplomatic relationship between the two great empires.
'CLÉOPÂTRE DEVANT CÉSAR' – A SALON DÉBUT
The model of Cléopâtre devant César was first exhibited at the Salon of 1886 as a life-size marble enriched with luxurious jewels by the firm, Froment-Meurice (no. 3313). The Salon work, on which the present bronze is based, depicts a powerful figure crowned by an elaborate headdress over luxurious tumbling braids, stepping forward from her cascading drapery and offering up a lotus flower as a sign of peace.
Cléopâtre devant César was subsequently listed as lot 1 in a sale of works by Clésinger at the Hôtel Drouot on 6 April 1870 where it was purchased by Monsieur Marnyhac, almost certainly the head of the eponymous bronze foundry Maison de Marnyhac & Cie. It is possible that Monsieur Marnyhac purchased the lot on behalf of a M. Paul Dalloz, as the latter acquired it for 30,000 francs. Clésinger’s Cléopâtre was later noted in the collection of M. Desfossés who lived at the villa Saïd, on the avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and who showed it at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 (A. Estignard, Clésinger, sa vie ses, œuvres, Paris, 1890, p. 167). Today, its whereabouts are unknown.
CLÉSINGER AND MARNYHAC
That the Salon marble was in the possession of Marnyhac in the years surrounding its creation is of great significance because the celebrated foundry would go on to make limited editions of Clésinger’s work including the present bronze. It is, therefore, possible that this Cléopâtre devant César was one of the first and finest examples of their celebrated partnership.
The Maison de Marnyhac & Cie. was one of the preeminent foundries of late 19th century Paris, and collaborated with many of the era’s leading sculptors and furniture makers to create luxurious works of art renowned for their exceptional casting and fine chasing. Clésinger had erstwhile partnered with Ferdinand Barbedienne to produce bronze reductions and editions of his works, but appears to have cut ties with the foundry after an 1867 dispute brought before the courts in Paris (J. de Caso, 'Serial Sculpture in Nineteenth-Century France', in J. Wasserman, ed., Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, ex. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975, no. 69, pp. 23-24). Clésinger subsequently signed a contract with Maison Marnyahc dated 23 February 1870, which stipulated that the foundry could sell works from his œuvre during his lifetime under the sole condition that the artist had approved of them by adding his signature to the models and, after his death, if a member of the French Institute did so in his stead (J. de Caso, op. cit., p. 16, no. 16).
In a departure from the 19th century practice of reproducing celebrated models, however, very few versions of Cléopâtre devant César are known. One other full-scale marble edition of this work created by Marnyhac and dated after 1873 is today in private French collection. Additionally, two smaller bronze editions of the present model are recorded: one measuring 77 cm. high, of which an example sold in a sale of Clésinger’s works on 26 February 1923 (lot 2), and another signed by Marnyhac and measuring 67 cm. high of which an example sold Sotheby’s, London, 14 December 2001, lot 153. The present lot is perhaps the only full-scale bronze of Cléopâtre devant César extant. It is photographed in a private Swiss collection in 1958 and 1968 (documentation, Musée d’Orsay, Paris).
AUGUSTE CLESINGER: `LE SCULPTEUR ENRAGÉ'
Clésinger was born the son of a sculptor, Georges-Philippe, in whose atelier he received his initial training. In 1832, he accompanied his father to Rome where he became the student of Bertel Thorvaldsen. Upon his return to France, he worked in the ateliers of a number of other sculptors, all the while navigating the political upheavals of 19th century France – the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire and the Third Republic – declaring allegiance to the successive regimes as he saw fit.
Clésinger simultaneously developed a reputation as a tempestuous virtuoso whose self-assured nature was widely discussed in contemporary Paris. Shortly before one Salon, he wrote to a friend that he predicted he would be named the first in that year’s exhibition in spite of all odds and thanks largely to his lofty social connections: 'Je crois…que je serai le premier au Salon de cette année…tout est mis en œuvre pour me faire échouer…Heureusement que j’ai su me ménager aussi des admirateurs et de bons amis, et mon succès est assuré.' (S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l’école française, Paris, 1914, vol. I, p. 394). The celebrated writer, Georges Sand, to whose daughter Clésinger was briefly married, also remarked on the artist’s frenetic nature, deeming him the 'sculpteur enragé' (cited in Y. Devaux, L’Univers des Bronzes, Paris, 1978, p. 185).
In the Salon of 1847, Clésinger showed perhaps his most famous work, Femme piquée par un serpent, a marble of a reclining, writhing female nude on a naturalistic base, which is today in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (RF 2053). This work, representing Apolline Sabatier (1822-1890) – muse of the famed poet Charles Baudelaire – caused a great scandal when it was shown at the Salon owing to its seductive pose and startling realism. However, it is today regarded as one of the artist’s most famous works and, through its sensual representation of the female form and painstaking attention to detail, it could be considered as a precursor to the present figure.
In his monograph on the artist, Estignard suggests that Cleopatra was a subject of particular interest to the artist for several years prior to the Salon of 1869. In 1861, Clésinger completed a sculpture of the dying Cleopatra, Cléopâtre mourante (A. Estignard, op. cit., Paris, 1890, p. 87). Later, after a hiatus from the Salon prompted by the cold reception for his works, he returned in 1869 with the marble that was the inspiration for the present bronze. Clésinger may have been influenced by the works of his contemporaries including Jean-Léon Gérôme’s painting of Cléopâtre et César which was shown at the Salon of 1866 and represents the Egyptian queen in a pose and state of undress very similar to that of the present figure (illustrated in Egyptomania, op. cit., no. 387, fig. 1, p. 574). However, according to Estignard, Clésinger sought, above all, with his Cléopâtre to show a figure in all her beauty, capable of disarming her enemies : 'il veut de nouveau la montrer dans toute sa beauté, dans tout son éclat, dans toute sa jeunesse; il fera une œuvre splendide qui désarmera ses ennemis' (Estignard, op. cit., p. 87). As time has shown and the present, exceptionally rare bronze attests, Clésinger’s exceptional work has retained its power.