- 113
François-Raoul Larche French, 1860-1912
bidding is closed
Description
- Raoul-François Larche
- La Tempête et les Nuées
- signed: RAOUL LARCHE, inscribed A Mr Léon Hyérard Préfet de l'Eure (1906-1911) / Les Républicains Département, stamped SIOT-PARIS and numbered 566A
- bronze, green and mid-brown patina
Catalogue Note
Reviewing Larche's career in 1989, Renoux considered La Tempête as something extraordinary in the sculptor's oeuvre. It contrasts with the usual gracefully content representations of feminine beauty common in his work. Nothing exhibited earlier in his career could have prepared the 1896 Salon public for the dramatic impact of La Tempête. Equally, the challenges and originality of the work were not truly developed in any of his later work.
For the critic Henri Rochefort 'un grand sculpteur nous est né dans la personne de Raoul Larche dont nous retrouvons cette année le group Michel-angelesque La Tempete'. Larche first showed La Tempête in plaster at the Salon in 1896. Acquired by the Ville de Paris for 13000 francs, it was exhibited at the Salon in bronze (height 349cm.) three years later and at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. Needless to say the power of the composition divided critical opinion. Paul Adam in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1896, p.469) concluded his description divided even in his own mind 'Monumental, le groupe manque d'excellence dans ses parties; mais l'ensemble est d'une belle direction'. For others it was all too unsettling: '...c'est une erreur facheuse, La Tempete est une chose intraduisible, un fluide insaisissable' (Renoux p.251).
The son of an ebeniste, Larche had a standard sculptural training under Jouffroy and Falguiere at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He won the second grand prix de Rome in 1886, having made his debut at the Salon two years before. He was awarded many honours at the annual Salons over the following thirty years and received an impressive crop of state and public commissions during his fairly brief career.
RELATED LITERATURE
Renoux, pp.251, 260-61, no.15, fig.5; Vieville in De Carpeaux a Matisse, pp.235-37
For the critic Henri Rochefort 'un grand sculpteur nous est né dans la personne de Raoul Larche dont nous retrouvons cette année le group Michel-angelesque La Tempete'. Larche first showed La Tempête in plaster at the Salon in 1896. Acquired by the Ville de Paris for 13000 francs, it was exhibited at the Salon in bronze (height 349cm.) three years later and at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. Needless to say the power of the composition divided critical opinion. Paul Adam in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1896, p.469) concluded his description divided even in his own mind 'Monumental, le groupe manque d'excellence dans ses parties; mais l'ensemble est d'une belle direction'. For others it was all too unsettling: '...c'est une erreur facheuse, La Tempete est une chose intraduisible, un fluide insaisissable' (Renoux p.251).
The son of an ebeniste, Larche had a standard sculptural training under Jouffroy and Falguiere at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He won the second grand prix de Rome in 1886, having made his debut at the Salon two years before. He was awarded many honours at the annual Salons over the following thirty years and received an impressive crop of state and public commissions during his fairly brief career.
RELATED LITERATURE
Renoux, pp.251, 260-61, no.15, fig.5; Vieville in De Carpeaux a Matisse, pp.235-37