LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Achille Collas (1795-1859) was a French engineer and inventor who devised a mechanical means of producing accurate reductions of three-dimensional sculpture, such as the present model of the 6th century B.C. Athenian Statesman Aristides. Collas formed a partnership with Ferdinand Barbedienne (d. 1892) and together they founded what became one of the most prodigious metalworking firms of the 19th century, the Barbedienne Foundry, Paris.