Jean-Baptiste Joseph De Bay (1779-1863) - Lot 9

Lot 9
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Jean-Baptiste Joseph De Bay (1779-1863) - Lot 9
Jean-Baptiste Joseph De Bay (1779-1863) Atropos preparing to cut the thread Plaster Signed "DE.BAY PÈRE", titled "ATROPOS" and titled "DESTIN". H. 128 x 73 cm Related works : - Jean Baptiste Joseph Père Debay (1779- 1863), Les trois Parques, 1827, plaster group, H.195 cm, Angers, Musée des Beaux- arts, SN inv. - Jean Baptiste Joseph Père Debay (1779- 1863), Les trois Parques, 1828, plaster group, H.195 cm, Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, inv.1390 Related literature : - L. and R. Ménard, Musée de peinture et de sculpture ou recueil des principaux tableaux statues et bas-reliefs, Paris, 1872, volume X, Imprimerie E. Martinet, pp. 43-44, pl. 46; - S. Lami, Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l'école française, au dix-neuvième siècle, Paris, 1914, vol. II, pp. 119-126 - Jacques Van Lennep, La sculpture belge au XIXe siècle, Générale de Banque et les auteurs, Brussels 1990 Although born in Mechelen, Jean Baptiste Joseph De Bay moved to Paris at an early age, joining Chaudet's studio. In 1801, he moved to Nantes, where he established himself as the city's official sculptor. In the City of the Dukes, he sculpted tirelessly for both communal and religious authorities. The town hall, the stock exchange, the Museum of Natural History, the public library and, of course, the cathedral are all decorated by De Bay's chisel. In 1817, he returned to Paris, where he settled permanently. The capital, then undergoing a major urban transformation, gave this indefatigable sculptor the opportunity to take on an impressive number of public commissions and to exhibit regularly in the Sa- lon. He sculpted for the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, the courtyard of the Louvre, the Tuileries gardens, the church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet and the Palais de la Bourse. De Bay became a French citizen and was awarded the Légion d'Honneur in 1825. However, he did not forget his origins and exhibited in Belgium, where he enjoyed great prestige. In 1827, he exhibited a large plaster group depicting the Three Fates at the Paris Salon, and again at the Universal Exhibition in 1855. The work was acquired by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in 1858. A second version, also in plaster, is kept at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Angers. The three deities, daughters of Zeus and Themis, mistresses of human destiny, are represented by three women spinning, unwinding and cutting the thread of human life. Of the group of three young women, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, it is the isolated figure of Atropos, equipped with the scissors that cut the thread of life, that is presented here. For this spectacular, highly accomplished study, undoubtedly a working model, De Bay drew his inspiration from the famous antique Crouching Venus in the Uffizi Palace in Florence. Not forgetting the lessons of his first Master Chaudet, he sculpts a neo-classical Atropos, forgetting for a time his taste for the truth and realism of the period.
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