Jean-Pierre Dantan
Niccolò Paganini
Auction Closed
June 10, 02:51 PM GMT
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Jean-Pierre Dantan
Paris 1800 - 1869 Baden-Baden
Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)
signed and dated: Dantan Je 1832
plaster
31.5cm., 12⅜in.
Private collection, France
By frequenting the salons of nobility and famous artists such as Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri, where he produced multiple busts, Jean-Pierre Dantan quickly made a name for himself in Paris. He was most revered for his caricature busts and honest statuettes of the European elite and those prominent in the world of art, music, and theatre.
The present lot wonderfully represents Dantan’s skill at capturing the character of his subject with an expressive quality, despite the small-scale. Niccolò Paganini was well known in the musical circles of Paris for being a technically superb violinist, with his long and slender physique often invoked to explain his talent. In this piece Dantan faithfully reflects Paganini’s mystique as he depicts the violin as almost an extension of the figure’s limbs.
RELATED LITERATURE:
L. Baridon, ‘Jean-Pierre Dantan, le caricaturiste de la statuomanie’, in Ridiculosa: Caricature et sculpture, no. 13, 2006, pp. 127-143