Lot Essay
The Gazette de France of 25 November 1634, p. 534, noted how on 'le 17 (novembre), le Sieur Biart sculpteur du Roy, jetta en fonte en cette ville une figure de Bronze de douze pieds de haut représentant une Galathée estant dans une coque marine, et ayant sous ses pieds un monstre marin de huit pieds de longueurs: le premier ouvrage de cette grandeur et beauté qui ont est jamais fait en France.' [On the 17th (of November), Biart, sculptor of the King, cast in that town a bronze figure twelve feet high representing a Galatea being in a conch and having under her feet a seamonster 8 feet long: the first work of grandeur and beauty to have been in France], Chaleix's article on Biard described how the statue, which he identifies as Amphitrite, was probably commissioned by Etienne Brioys Sieur de Bagnolet and Conseiller Secrétaire du Roy maison et couronne de France et de ses Finances, P. Chaleix, L'Activité de Pierre II Biard, Bulletin de la société de l'histoire de l'art français, Paris 1974, pp. 95-6. The sculpture, which cost Brioys the sum of 5000 livres, was placed in the rotunda of the garden of the château de Bagnolet. It was immediately recognised as the most ambitious work produced by Biard, indeed by any French sculptor up to that date. The present drawing is the only record we now possess of this important lost work.
In a subsequent article Chaleix published the present drawing as a copy after the statue executed a few years later by 'un dessinateur de talent', P. Chaleix, op. cit., pp. 25-6. Chaleix suggested an alternative attribution to the young Le Brun, an idea which was, however, rejected by Jennifer Montagu. The drawing has been subsequently reattributed to Biard himself, in accordance with the inscription- 'fait par Biard'- which is probably contemporary with the drawing. The artist was an engraver as well as a sculptor, and the technique of crosshatching allied with red chalk framing lines which recalls engraved book illustrations, suggests an artist accustomed to the art of printmaking. The sketchiness of the drawing of the conch, excludes the possibilty that the present sheet is simply a copy. The quality of the drawing, particularly the virtuoso foreshortening, and the lack of any description of the base would suggest that this is a presentation drawing, intended to show the patron the appearance of the figure
In a subsequent article Chaleix published the present drawing as a copy after the statue executed a few years later by 'un dessinateur de talent', P. Chaleix, op. cit., pp. 25-6. Chaleix suggested an alternative attribution to the young Le Brun, an idea which was, however, rejected by Jennifer Montagu. The drawing has been subsequently reattributed to Biard himself, in accordance with the inscription- 'fait par Biard'- which is probably contemporary with the drawing. The artist was an engraver as well as a sculptor, and the technique of crosshatching allied with red chalk framing lines which recalls engraved book illustrations, suggests an artist accustomed to the art of printmaking. The sketchiness of the drawing of the conch, excludes the possibilty that the present sheet is simply a copy. The quality of the drawing, particularly the virtuoso foreshortening, and the lack of any description of the base would suggest that this is a presentation drawing, intended to show the patron the appearance of the figure