Antoine-Louis Barye

Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge
Antoine-Louis Barye Bronzes From the Collection of the Late Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, Sotheby's Park Bernet Inc, October 29, 1975, lot 141
Gift of Arthur Rubloff, 1985

Art Institute of Chicago, Les Animaliers: Animal Subjects by French Sculptors, 1830-1900, from the Arthur Rubloff Collection, 1 February - 31 March 1985

Michel Poletti and Alain Richarme, BARYE, Catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Paris, 2000, no. F 34, p. 111

Overall in good original condition with the usual wear to the patina in places especially to high reliefs of the composition and such consistent with handling and touching. Light scratches consistent with age. Dark patina possibly owing to a later re-patination.
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Although a posthumous cast by Barbedienne, the present cast is nevertheless of remarkable interest and importance, as it is Barye's original size of 128 cm. The original model was conceived in 1849 and exhibited at the Paris Salon the following year. As the master's second and final mythological work following Thésée combattant le minotaure in 1843, Thésée combatant le Centaure Biénor, was edited posthumously by Ferdinand Barbedienne in four reductions as well as in grandeur nature (original size) for which the present is a prime example. Life time casts of this size, believed to be less than five, can be found in the musée du Louvre, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; and the Musée Crozatier, Le Puy-en-Velay, France.

Barbedienne also produced a three meter cast meant to surmount the monument to Barye. The cast was designed by the architect Stanislas Bernier under the direction of the sculptor L. H. Marqueste, funded by American collectors and erected on the boulevard Henri IV on the Ile Saint-Louis, Paris, in 1894. Sadly this monument was destroyed during World War II. 

Barye's Thésée combattant le Centaure Biénor depicts a moment between the Lapiths of Thessaly and the Centaurs of Arcadia, when the hero Theseus saves Hippodaimia, daughter of the king of the Lapiths.

The model Thésée combattant le Centaure Biénor was inspired by the following passage from Book XII of Ovid's Metamorphoses:

Then leapt on tall Bianor's back (who bore
No mortal burden but his own, before);
Press'd with his knees his sides; the double man,
His speed with spurs increas'd, unwilling ran.
One hand the hero fastn'd on his locks;
His other ply'd him with repeated strokes.
The club rung round his ears, and batter'd brows;
He falls; and lashing up his heels, his rider throws.
(Translation by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al)