Antoine-Louis Barye

Theseus Fighting the Centaur Bianor

Lot Closed

May 20, 06:42 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property of a Philadelphia Art Collector

Antoine-Louis Barye

French

1796 - 1875

Theseus Fighting the Centaur Bianor

signed A L Barye and inscribed F. Barbedienne Fondeur Paris

bronze

16 by 15 in.; 40.6 by 38.1 cm

Barye's Theseus Fighting the Centaur Bianor depicts a moment during the battle between the Lapiths of Thessaly and the centaurs of Arcadia when Theseus saves Hippodamia, the daughter of the king of the Lapiths, from a centaur. The story is described in Book XII of Ovid's Metamorphoses and the present work depicts Theseus just before he violently slays the centaur. Barye exhibited his semi-life-size plaster group of the subject at the Paris Salon of 1850 to great acclaim.

RELATED LITERATURE
M. Poletti and A. Richarme, Barye Catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Paris, 2000, p. 111, no. F 34.