Albert Bartholomé

Albert Bartholomé was an autodidact who focused on painting for much of his early career. After the tragic early death of his wife in 1886, he devoted himself to sculpting. Many of his works exude a peaceful melancholy, which can also be found in his most famous Monument to the Dead at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, finished in 1899. Together with Rodin's Gates of Hell, this has often been seen as one of the greatest expressions of symbolist sculpture. Bartholomé won the Grand Prize for sculpture at the Exposition Universelle in 1900, and continued to have a successful career as a sculptor.

The present model, La Fontaine, was first created in plaster by the sculptor in 1896 (Burollet, op. cit. S. 28/A), intended as a preparatory study for a marble to be exhibited at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. Bartholomé retained the plaster in his studio, which inspired several later versions in bronze and marble, one of which was recorded as part of his widow's collection in 1928. A version in marble, dating to 1905, is part of the Imperial Collection in Japan; another was sold in these rooms on 12 July 2017, lot 84. The present bronze would have been cast by Siot-Decauville.

RELATED LITERATURE

P. Kjellberg, Bronzes of the 19th Century: Dictionary of Sculptors, London, 1994, pp. 52-53; T. Burollet, Bartholomé: La redécouverte d’un grand sculpteur, Paris, 2017, pp. 245-247, no. S.28