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Lot Essay
BUGATTI
CAPTURING THE WILD
by Véronique Fromanger
Sculptor Rembrandt Bugatti was not even twenty when he made the portrait of this young Lionne jouant avec une boule. The original plaster cast, currently at the musée d’Orsay, is dated 1903.
As soon as he arrived in Paris, Bugatti spent his days at the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, where wild animals would become his life and work companions. The first contact with a wild animal can be established through sight and smell, and with an infinite patience. First, there is suspicion viewing the unknown, soon replaced by curiosity and little by little, the animal allows viewers to observe them confidently.
With her arched neck, the young lioness holds a quarter of meat in her powerful jaw, while playing with a ball. Bugatti chose this special moment to model her, seizing her feline body, naturally agile and muscular. The treatment of volumes is very spontaneous and free, without the artist having retouched anything in his work. Bugatti made every bulge of the body feel like the muscle under her skin, in a movement that is transitioning from one attitude to another. Every single evidence of the artist modelling his sculpture are visible.
In 1904, Bugatti signed an exclusive contract with A. A. Hébrard to produce bronze casts of his models. The first exhibition of the Hébrard Galerie, rue Royale in Paris, was dedicated to Rembrandt Bugatti, and an example of the Lionne jouant avec une boule was presented in this show. From the beginning, only a few examples of this work were meant to be cast.
The success was immediate. Criticism was unanimous: “here is a young sculptor really extraordinary (…) better than any other lecture, the observation of the eye and the spirit has trained his exceptional talent (…) every single work has its own character, its own physiognomy: this is where he outperforms every other animal sculptors that we have known until today (…) this young animalier is particularly gifted (…) Rembrandt Bugatti is for the amateurs a true discovery in impressionist sculpture”. On June 22, 1904, Le Figaro wrote: “Mr. Hébrard discovered a young Italian animal sculptor who has shown a remarkable energy and personal talent of color and life”
– Véronique Fromanger
CAPTURING THE WILD
by Véronique Fromanger
Sculptor Rembrandt Bugatti was not even twenty when he made the portrait of this young Lionne jouant avec une boule. The original plaster cast, currently at the musée d’Orsay, is dated 1903.
As soon as he arrived in Paris, Bugatti spent his days at the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, where wild animals would become his life and work companions. The first contact with a wild animal can be established through sight and smell, and with an infinite patience. First, there is suspicion viewing the unknown, soon replaced by curiosity and little by little, the animal allows viewers to observe them confidently.
With her arched neck, the young lioness holds a quarter of meat in her powerful jaw, while playing with a ball. Bugatti chose this special moment to model her, seizing her feline body, naturally agile and muscular. The treatment of volumes is very spontaneous and free, without the artist having retouched anything in his work. Bugatti made every bulge of the body feel like the muscle under her skin, in a movement that is transitioning from one attitude to another. Every single evidence of the artist modelling his sculpture are visible.
In 1904, Bugatti signed an exclusive contract with A. A. Hébrard to produce bronze casts of his models. The first exhibition of the Hébrard Galerie, rue Royale in Paris, was dedicated to Rembrandt Bugatti, and an example of the Lionne jouant avec une boule was presented in this show. From the beginning, only a few examples of this work were meant to be cast.
The success was immediate. Criticism was unanimous: “here is a young sculptor really extraordinary (…) better than any other lecture, the observation of the eye and the spirit has trained his exceptional talent (…) every single work has its own character, its own physiognomy: this is where he outperforms every other animal sculptors that we have known until today (…) this young animalier is particularly gifted (…) Rembrandt Bugatti is for the amateurs a true discovery in impressionist sculpture”. On June 22, 1904, Le Figaro wrote: “Mr. Hébrard discovered a young Italian animal sculptor who has shown a remarkable energy and personal talent of color and life”
– Véronique Fromanger