Age of Elegance: European Paintings, Furniture and Works of Art from the 19th Century

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Lot 12
  • 12

Joseph Michel-Ange Pollet

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Description

  • Joseph Michel-Ange Pollet
  • Une Heure de la Nuit (An Hour of the Night)
  • signed: J. Pollet
  • bronze, reddish-brown and greenish-brown patina, on a stepped wooden base covered in pale yellow velvet

Catalogue Note

French Sculptor Joseph Pollet was born in Palermo, Italy but practiced and exhibited in Paris, earning the prestigious Légion d’honneur for his work in 1856. His subjects ranged broadly from historical and classical to ecclesiastical and allegorical.  

Une heure de la Nuit, gained Pollet wide recognition when he exhibited it in plaster at the Salon in 1848. While it was on display he was quickly approached for the rights to edit it, and both Empress Eugenié and the Ministry of the Interior requested a version of it. Since this exhibition, the composition has been reproduced in multiple sizes and in different materials. This model is among only a few other known examples on this life-size scale, the original being the Salon sculpture. 

 A marble version of une Heure de la Nuit was exhibited at the Louvre and is now in the Museum of the Second Empire at Château de Compiègne - a French royal residence built for Louis XV and restored by Napoleon. Other examples of Pollet’s work can be found in the collections of the Musée de Grenoble and the Musée d’Orsay.

 RELATED LITERATURE

S. Lami, Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l'École Francaise au dix-neuvieme siècle, Paris, 1916, vol. 4, p. 93; A. Le Normand-Romain, A. Pingeot & L. de Margerie, Musée d’Orsay; Catalogue sommaire illustré des sculptures, Paris, 1986, p. 208