Ferdinand BARBEDIENNE (1810-1892) after François-Joseph... Lot 183

Ferdinand BARBEDIENNE (1810-1892) after François-Joseph BOSIO (Monaco, 1768-Paris, 1845) Statuette in bronze with a silver patina representing Henri IV as a child under the features of Henri d'Artois, Duke of Bordeaux, after the model of Bosio of 1824. Signature on the right on the terrace "Bosio". H. 49 cm. History The sculptor Bosio represents here Henri de Navarre, the founder, in 1589, of the Bourbon dynasty, still a child and about ten years old. The Louvre Museum has a silver statue dated 1824, commissioned for the French king Louis XVIII (1815-1824). This full-length retrospective portrait of the young Henry IV, dressed like the court gentlemen of the Valois king Charles IX (1570-1574), emphasizes the young prince's assurance and ease, his left hand firmly holding the pommel of his sword, and his facial features expressing a certain determination. A propaganda effigy, the use of the image of the founder of the dynasty was intended to enhance the image of the Bourbons after the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, recalling their glorious past and playing on the popularity enjoyed by Henry IV in the early nineteenth century. Bosio was inspired by a painting attributed at the time to François II Bunel (1522-1599), now kept in the National Museum of the Château de Versailles (MV 3282), to create a work that is linked by its familiarity to the Troubadour style. The features are also those, according to some scholars, of the young son of the Duke and Duchess of Berry, Henri d'Artois, future Count of Chambord, adding to the propaganda of this sculpture. Commissioned by King Louis XVIII, the statue was presented to him unfinished on August 25, 1824, the king's birthday. It was placed in the royal cabinet at the Tuileries Palace. It was so successful that Bosio received an order for two marbles, one for Versailles, the other for the room of Henri IV at the Château de Pau. He also had twelve bronzes cast. But it is with the reductions of the founder Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892) that the model is diffused to the general public. The most copied work under the Restoration (1815-1830), it testifies to the craze for the first Bourbon.