Roger Godchaux

Roger Godchaux belonged to a late generation of animalier sculptors who followed in the footsteps of the great Romantic exponents of the genre, whilst adding an impressionistic vitality of their own. Ary Bitter and Georges Gardet were his contemporaries and Godchaux shared with them a concern for decorative form and surface, moving away from the naturalism and detail of the nineteenth century animaliers. However, Godchaux’s debt to Antoine-Louis Barye is obvious and self-conscious. It is particularly evident in his elephant sculptures, which were amongst his most popular subjects. The influence of his teacher Jean-Léon Gerôme is also seen, in Godchaux’s attraction to the exotic. In the present model Godchaux depicts an Indian Mahout, or elephant trainer, returning from the hunt, with a lioness slung behind him over the elephant’s back. France held five colonies in the mostly British India between 1763 and 1947 and the mystery and romance of the subcontinent held a unique place in the French imagination. This beautiful bronze was cast by the lost-wax process by the Susse foundry. It may be identified with the ‘Elephant porteur’ listed in the Susse catalogue of 1939.

RELATED LITERATURE
C. Payne, Animals in Bronze, Woodbridge, 1986, pp. 255, 260 and 406; P. Kjellberg, Les bronzes du XIXe siècle: dictionnaire des sculpteurs, Paris, 1987 p. 361; P. Cadet, Susse Frères: 150 Years of Sculpture 1837-1987, Paris, 1992, p. 346; J. Hachet, Dictionnaire illustré des sculpteurs animaliers et fondeurs de l’antiquité à nos jours, Luxembourg, 2004, pp. 355-356