拍品專文
The evolution of Antoine Chaudet's oeuvre parallels the political and philosophical climate in France from 1789 through the early years of the Empire. His 1784 Salon entry, a bas-relief of Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers, earned Chaudet the Prix de Rome. The next four years that Chaudet spent at the Acadmie de France in Rome were crucial to the development of the sculptor's mature style as they allowed him to study not only the classical works of ancient Rome, but the sculpture of that supreme neo-classicist, Antonio Canova.
Chaudet's return to France heralded the beginning of a long and illustrious official career. Exhibiting regularly at the Salon, he was made an associate of the Acadmie Royale in 1789. Although he worked principally on small-scale groups during the Revolution, in 1792 he was commissioned to carve the stone relief Devotion to the Motherland as part of the project for the revolutionary transformation of the Pantheon. Chaudet became one of the most widely honored sculptors of the 1st Empire. He was made Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur, Professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and became a member of the Institut de France in 1805.
The Directory (1795/9) and the Consulate (1799-1804) brought greater political stability and Chaudet turned increasingly to larger, permanent works of very refined Grecian elegance. Cupid playing with a butterfly, the plaster for the present bronze sculpture, was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1802. The marble, today in the Louvre, was completed after Chaudet's death by his friend Pierre Cartellier.
As a painter, Chaudet's style was close to that of his contemporary David. As an illustrator he collaborated on book projects such as Diderot's editions of the works of Racine and Montesquieu. But it is with his sculpture that Chaudet left a more permanent visual mark. The bust of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul became, with slight modification, the official bust of Napoleon as Emperor (bronze, Louvre). It was also Chaudet who produced the colossal statue of Emperor holding a winged victory which graced the top of the Colonne de la Grande Arme in Paris' Place Vendme until its destruction in 1814.
Official commissions continued under the 1st Empire, from the allegorical relief of Heroic poetry, Homer and Virgil, made for the Palais du Louvre's Cour Carre to the models drawn for the Empress Josephine's jewel cabinet (Louvre) as well as the design of the famous Napoleonic eagle of the Imperial Army.
Chaudet's Cupid playing with a Butterfly was undoubtedly influenced by Canova's life-size marble of Standing Cupid and Psyche which depicts Psyche placing a butterfly in the palm of Cupid's hand. Executed in 1797, Chaudet could have seen this work as early as 1802 when it was exhibited at the Chteau of Villers-la-Garenne as part of the celebration for First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. The Canova remained in the Josephine de Beauharnais collection and was later exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1808, now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Chaudet's Roman god of love, whose elongated morphology is as delicate as the gesture he is accomplishing, that of offering a rose to a butterfly, recalls the idealized mythological nudes of Canova.
This sculptural ode to a butterfly embodies both pagan and christian symbolism; the butterfly representing the resurrected soul, the rose an attribute of both Venus and the Virgin Mary (a rose without thorns). The frieze panels that run along the base of the bronze depict little cupids attacking a beehive and trying to harness a butterfly. The imagery is thus reminiscent of the often playful subjects found in Roman frescoes. Is this to be seen as a conflict between love and the soul or merely a fanciful mixture of mythology subjugated to the demands of Chaudet's classical aesthetic?.
Chaudet's sculptures - be they political or privately allegorical - heed Winckelmann's call for noble simplicity. It is tempting at any rate to view this important ethereal work as a smiling, magnificent monument to the culture of French neo-classicism.
Chaudet's return to France heralded the beginning of a long and illustrious official career. Exhibiting regularly at the Salon, he was made an associate of the Acadmie Royale in 1789. Although he worked principally on small-scale groups during the Revolution, in 1792 he was commissioned to carve the stone relief Devotion to the Motherland as part of the project for the revolutionary transformation of the Pantheon. Chaudet became one of the most widely honored sculptors of the 1st Empire. He was made Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur, Professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and became a member of the Institut de France in 1805.
The Directory (1795/9) and the Consulate (1799-1804) brought greater political stability and Chaudet turned increasingly to larger, permanent works of very refined Grecian elegance. Cupid playing with a butterfly, the plaster for the present bronze sculpture, was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1802. The marble, today in the Louvre, was completed after Chaudet's death by his friend Pierre Cartellier.
As a painter, Chaudet's style was close to that of his contemporary David. As an illustrator he collaborated on book projects such as Diderot's editions of the works of Racine and Montesquieu. But it is with his sculpture that Chaudet left a more permanent visual mark. The bust of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul became, with slight modification, the official bust of Napoleon as Emperor (bronze, Louvre). It was also Chaudet who produced the colossal statue of Emperor holding a winged victory which graced the top of the Colonne de la Grande Arme in Paris' Place Vendme until its destruction in 1814.
Official commissions continued under the 1st Empire, from the allegorical relief of Heroic poetry, Homer and Virgil, made for the Palais du Louvre's Cour Carre to the models drawn for the Empress Josephine's jewel cabinet (Louvre) as well as the design of the famous Napoleonic eagle of the Imperial Army.
Chaudet's Cupid playing with a Butterfly was undoubtedly influenced by Canova's life-size marble of Standing Cupid and Psyche which depicts Psyche placing a butterfly in the palm of Cupid's hand. Executed in 1797, Chaudet could have seen this work as early as 1802 when it was exhibited at the Chteau of Villers-la-Garenne as part of the celebration for First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. The Canova remained in the Josephine de Beauharnais collection and was later exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1808, now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Chaudet's Roman god of love, whose elongated morphology is as delicate as the gesture he is accomplishing, that of offering a rose to a butterfly, recalls the idealized mythological nudes of Canova.
This sculptural ode to a butterfly embodies both pagan and christian symbolism; the butterfly representing the resurrected soul, the rose an attribute of both Venus and the Virgin Mary (a rose without thorns). The frieze panels that run along the base of the bronze depict little cupids attacking a beehive and trying to harness a butterfly. The imagery is thus reminiscent of the often playful subjects found in Roman frescoes. Is this to be seen as a conflict between love and the soul or merely a fanciful mixture of mythology subjugated to the demands of Chaudet's classical aesthetic?.
Chaudet's sculptures - be they political or privately allegorical - heed Winckelmann's call for noble simplicity. It is tempting at any rate to view this important ethereal work as a smiling, magnificent monument to the culture of French neo-classicism.