CAST FROM A MODEL BY ALFRED BOUCHER, LATE 19TH CENTURY

The plaster version of Au But, otherwise known as Les Coureurs, was exhibited at the Salon of 1886 and won a first class medal. Many critics commended the sculptor's talent and Paul Leroi wrote of the piece in L'Art, "a plaster group with an extreme vigour, an admirable intensity of life, the greatest movement, and a rare suppleness of modelling, in short, one of the masterpieces which honours French art." The state awarded Boucher the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and commissioned a life-size bronze version of Au But. The finished cast was exhibited at the Salon in 1887 (no. 3675), before being placed in the Luxembourg Gardens, where it remained until, sadly, being destroyed during the Nazi occupation. Such was the popularity of this work, it was edited in many different sizes, and by numerous foundries, including Barbedienne, Susse and Siot-Decauville.

Another cast of this same size sold Sotheby's New York, 15 June 2005, lot 210 ($54,000). For a note on Alfred Boucher please see lot 106.