Lot 15
  • 15

Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier French, 1827-1905

Estimate
35,000 - 45,000 GBP
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Description

  • Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier
  • Greque Moderne
  • signed and dated: C. CORDIER 1873
  • silvered and gilt bronze

Catalogue Note

Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier was one of the most innovative sculptors of the 19th Century. His unique oeuvre is distinguished by a fascination with ethnography and a mastery of colour. His illustrious collectors included Napoleon III, Empress Eugénie, Baron James de Rothschild and Queen Victoria who treasured Cordier’s distinctive sculptures for their sheer beauty and opulence.

Cordier’s extraordinary vision was evident from his very first exhibit at the Paris Salon of 1848. His bust of Saïd Abdallah of the Darfour Tribe was ordered in bronze by the French government. The vogue for Orientalist subjects was strong and Cordier went on to create many popular busts and figures in this genre. He also took an interest in European subjects detailing national types and costumes. In 1851 Cordier was given the post of ethnographic sculptor to the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle, a post he held for 15 years. During this time he made government sponsored tours of Algeria, Greece and Egypt.

Cordier left for Greece on 16th April 1858 with an allowance of 700 francs a month and letters of introduction from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He travelled for eight months taking in Athens, Attica, the Peloponese and the Cyclades. His mission was to inspect the marble quarries which furnished the stone for the legendary sculptors of ancient Greece for the French market and to record contemporary Greeks in sculpture. As Trapadoux, the writer of Cordier’s 1860 catalogue, recalled, young Greek women were happy to sit for a young French sculptor charged by his government to study Greek beauty and record the most remarkable types. The result was a stunning series of models which recorded the beauties of various regions including Hydra, Messolonghi and, in the present case, the Peloponese.

The much admired model of Grecque Moderne was exhibited at the Great Exhibitions in London, 1872, Vienna, 1873, Philadelphia, 1876 and at the Paris Salon of 1875. It is exceedingly rare and the recent catalogue raisonné of Cordier’s oeuvre records only two versions of the model at this size, with one reduction at 44cm. The first large version is in a private collection in California, the location of the second version is cited as unknown and it most probably can be identified as the present bust. The bust faithfully records the details of the costume worn by the Peloponese including the gold-embroidered jacket and fez which Queen Amalia of Greece made the official costume of the court in 1835. The delicate colouration of the present bronze distinguishes the surfaces, with silvered skin and the warm red tones in the hat and jacket heightened with gilt tassels and embroidery. The surface textures are brought into sharp focus as the artist delineates the stripes of the chemise and the lines of the gold threads bordering the jacket, set against the burnished smoothness of skin.

RELATED LITERATURE
Charles Cordier: l’autre et l’ailleurs, ex. cat. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 2004, cat. nos. 259 & 260, p. 174; E. Papet & M. Vigli, ‘Le Voyage en Grèce, Avril – Novembre 1858’, in Charles Cordier: l’autre et l’ailleurs, pp. 87 – 91; M. Trapadoux, L’Oeuvre de M. Cordier, galerie anthropologique et ethnographique pour servir à l’histoire des races, Paris, 1860, p. 33