Jean-Jacques Feuchère

Peter Fusco and al.; Romantics to Rodin, Los Angeles, 1980, pp. 266-267

Overall in good condition. Please note that this lot is dated 1833, and not 1883 as stated in the catalogue description.
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For any modern student of nineteenth century French sculpture, Jean-Jacques Feuchère's Satan has become one of the icons of the period, because it was selected as the front cover illustration of the pioneering exhibition The Romantics to Rodin, French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections in 1980. The relevance of Feuchère's Satan was graphically illustrated by the selection of Rodin's Thinker for the back cover of the catalogue.

For Peter Fusco, writing the entry for the bronze in the exhibition, the Satan 'epitomizes the interests of Romantic sculptors'. The 1830s witnessed a plethora of sculptures on a satanic theme, including works by Jean-Jacques Flatters, Carlo Marochetti, Jean- Bernard Duseigneur and Antonin Moine. Many shared the common inspirations of Milton, Dante and Goethe. Amongst the later sculptures influenced by Feuchère's Satan, Fusco lists Duret's Chactas Meditating on the Tomb of Atala, Carpeaux's early masterpiece Ugolino, Joseph Geefs' Angel of Evil and, of course, Rodin's Thinker.

Exhibited at the Salon in 1834, Feuchère's Satan was highly praised: 'among all the angels and demons, there is one figure that incontestably merits particular attention because of the original character it has been imprinted with, because of the novelty of its composition and the conscientious craftsmanship with which it is rendered, it is the Satan of M. Feuchère, a personification, with plenty of verve and ardour, of the evil genius at odds with being powerless.'