Aimé-Jules Dalou

Christie’s New York, 30 October 1992, lot 161.

In 1871, Jules Dalou was one of many Frenchmen who were forced to flee their native country due to support for the Paris Commune. During his exile in London, Dalou’s work became quite popular with the English aristocracy, a trend evidenced by the 1877 commission that the sculptor received from Queen Victoria. Barely over the age of fifty, the Queen had already seen five of her grandsons die at a young age and instructed Dalou to a fashion a memorial for them that would be displayed in her private chapel at Windsor. Dalou produced Angel with Children, a terracotta group featuring an angel holding three babies, with two slightly older children at their feet.

Just two years later, tragedy once again befell the royal family, as Victoria’s granddaughter Marie contracted diphtheria and died. Victoria had been impressed by Angel with Children – judging the work as “very well done” – and turned to Dalou for another memorial in the wake of Marie’s passing, which was to feature an angel holding a single child representing Marie. This work was apparently completed and sent to Victoria, but its fate after delivery is unknown. The present bronze is based on a maquette for this sculpture, which was used as the basis for casts by the A. A. Hébrard Foundry during the first decade of the 20th century. This sculpture captures the tender expression of the angel and the swaddled body of Marie in striking detail; originally crafted for a grieving Queen Victoria, its emotional resonance has not diminished in the intervening century and a half.

RELATED LITERATURE

P. Ward Jackson, “Jules Dalou’s Royal Commissions from Queen Victoria” in The Burlington Magazine 156, no. 1337 (August 2014).