.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This fine life-size marble of Suzanne au bain was executed by Pierre Sébastien Guersant in 1840 after the marble original dated 1813 by Pierre-Nicolas Beauvallet (d. 1818), which was shown in plaster as the 1810 salon. Commissioned in marble the following year it was placed in the Laiterie of the château de Rambouillet on 26 April 1816 presumably as part of refurbishments brought by the Bourbon Restoration. It is now in the Louvre (M.R. 1757).
The third Marquess of Londonderry was a great connoisseur of heroic early 19th century statuary as evidenced by the Londonderry marbles collected for Londonderry House, Park Lane, where the present figure of Suzanne numbered among many important works including Canova’s Theseus and the Minotaur, now in the V. As becoming of his birth right and illustrious military and diplomatic career, the third Marquess travelled extensively across Europe. It is probably that he visited the château de Rambouillet at some point and saw Beauvallet’s original Suzanne.
The Londonderry version is dated by Guersant 1840, and although it can be speculated that the third Marquess commissioned it in memory of seeing Beauvallet’s original at Rambouillet on a prior visit, the date of its commission can be reasoned to be 1837 when the Marquess and his second wife Frances Anne spent a month in Paris returning from St. Petersburg. Frances Anne was heir to very large estates in co. Durham and substantial coal mines in north east England, which financed the purchase of Holdernesse House (later Londonderry House) and the aggrandisement of Wynyard Park. The collection of the Londonderry marbles were so financed at this time, as was the purchase of bronze statuary for Wynyard Park, including the monumental bronze of Ajax by Crozatier (also offered in this sale) which was, like Suzanne au bain, most probably purchased in Paris in 1837.
Suzanne is visible in a sketch of the sculpture gallery at Holdernesse House (later Londonderry House) in the Illustrated London News, circa 1850. It shows her in pride of place at the end of the gallery. She is not however listed in the 1886 inventory, after which she was presumably moved to Wynyard Park where she is shown in a photograph of the colossal sculpture gallery, circa 1890.
Pierre Sébastien Guersant was born near Châteauroux in 1786. He studied under M. Cartellier and debuted at the 1814 salon a pair of plaques of Louis XVIII accordant la grâce d'un homme condamné aux fers and le Retour du Fils Prodigue. Subsequent early salon exhibits show a preponderance for bas-reliefs, amongst them state commissions, however by 1822 Guersant’s style had matured, showing at that year’s salon a statue of the Virgin and later various busts including Jeanne Hachette for the town of Beauvais and Germain Pilon for la maison du Roi. Other notable commission included a plaque of Homer, one of a series of plaques intended for the Bastille Elephant fountain. A comparatively late commission for Guersant, the present marble of Suzanne au bain represents a high in his career, being unusually large and ambitious with reference to his oeuvre. It is faithful to Beauvallet’s original with the exception of Guersant’s playful addition of the tortoise, serpent and scallop shell which do not feature to the original.
The third Marquess of Londonderry was a great connoisseur of heroic early 19th century statuary as evidenced by the Londonderry marbles collected for Londonderry House, Park Lane, where the present figure of Suzanne numbered among many important works including Canova’s Theseus and the Minotaur, now in the V. As becoming of his birth right and illustrious military and diplomatic career, the third Marquess travelled extensively across Europe. It is probably that he visited the château de Rambouillet at some point and saw Beauvallet’s original Suzanne.
The Londonderry version is dated by Guersant 1840, and although it can be speculated that the third Marquess commissioned it in memory of seeing Beauvallet’s original at Rambouillet on a prior visit, the date of its commission can be reasoned to be 1837 when the Marquess and his second wife Frances Anne spent a month in Paris returning from St. Petersburg. Frances Anne was heir to very large estates in co. Durham and substantial coal mines in north east England, which financed the purchase of Holdernesse House (later Londonderry House) and the aggrandisement of Wynyard Park. The collection of the Londonderry marbles were so financed at this time, as was the purchase of bronze statuary for Wynyard Park, including the monumental bronze of Ajax by Crozatier (also offered in this sale) which was, like Suzanne au bain, most probably purchased in Paris in 1837.
Suzanne is visible in a sketch of the sculpture gallery at Holdernesse House (later Londonderry House) in the Illustrated London News, circa 1850. It shows her in pride of place at the end of the gallery. She is not however listed in the 1886 inventory, after which she was presumably moved to Wynyard Park where she is shown in a photograph of the colossal sculpture gallery, circa 1890.
Pierre Sébastien Guersant was born near Châteauroux in 1786. He studied under M. Cartellier and debuted at the 1814 salon a pair of plaques of Louis XVIII accordant la grâce d'un homme condamné aux fers and le Retour du Fils Prodigue. Subsequent early salon exhibits show a preponderance for bas-reliefs, amongst them state commissions, however by 1822 Guersant’s style had matured, showing at that year’s salon a statue of the Virgin and later various busts including Jeanne Hachette for the town of Beauvais and Germain Pilon for la maison du Roi. Other notable commission included a plaque of Homer, one of a series of plaques intended for the Bastille Elephant fountain. A comparatively late commission for Guersant, the present marble of Suzanne au bain represents a high in his career, being unusually large and ambitious with reference to his oeuvre. It is faithful to Beauvallet’s original with the exception of Guersant’s playful addition of the tortoise, serpent and scallop shell which do not feature to the original.