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拍品專文
We would like to thank Veronique Fromanger for her assistance with this catalogue entry.
The son of the celebrated designer Carlo Bugatti and younger brother to Ettore, the renowned sports car designer, Rembrandt Bugatti moved from Milan to Paris in 1903. There, in his late teens and infatuated with the animal kingdom, the young sculptor spent countless hours at the Jardin des Plantes keenly watching and sketching its zoological residents. With remarkable powers of observation and extraordinary technical skill, in a career that lasted little more than twelve years ending tragically in suicide at 31, Bugatti captured the essence of every animal; their gait, motion and physiology. Bugatti's empathy with his subjects rendered each sculpture not only an aesthetic masterpiece, but also a study of the interconnection of human and animal traits.
Caught mid-stride, Bugatti's 'Elephant d'Asie en Marche' evokes the delicate charm that resides within the colossal animal. For the eight years following 1907, Bugatti lived on and off in Antwerp visiting the zoo, at the time the largest in Europe, practically daily. Permitted access to private areas, Bugatti would position himself in front of the animal enclosures for long periods of time feeding and observing the members of the menagerie. In Antwerp he discovered the Asian elephant after which the present bronze is modeled, with its significantly smaller ears than the African elephants he encountered in Paris and had previously sculpted.
Executed in two sizes, the present larger version of the 'Elephant d'Asie en Marche' is numbered 1 of an edition of 5 and was executed by Adrien Hébrard for an M. Tiffany of New York in 1913, likely Louis Comfort Tiffany (1858-1933) who is known to have acquired other animal bronzes by Bugatti, namely three casts of the smaller version of this particular model, as well as a cast of the 'Eléphant de l'Inde au feuillage ou Gros Eléphant jouant' (sold Christie's, Collection Claude et Simon Dray, Paris, 8 June 2006, lot 293).
This present bronze bears a plaque commemorating its presentation to William Barnes, the owner and publisher of the Albany Times-Union who in 1915 famously and unsuccessfully charged ex-President Theodore Roosevelt with libel for describing him as a crooked Republican boss making deals with corrupt Tammany Hall Democrats.
The original plaster for the present model was exhibited at the Société Royale de Zoologie in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1910. Five recorded copies of this model were cast by A. A. Hébrad. Cast number 2 from the edition is in the permanent collection of the Museée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, France.
cf. V. Fromanger, Rembrandt Bugatti: Répertoire Monographique, Paris, 2009, p. 308, no. 229.
The son of the celebrated designer Carlo Bugatti and younger brother to Ettore, the renowned sports car designer, Rembrandt Bugatti moved from Milan to Paris in 1903. There, in his late teens and infatuated with the animal kingdom, the young sculptor spent countless hours at the Jardin des Plantes keenly watching and sketching its zoological residents. With remarkable powers of observation and extraordinary technical skill, in a career that lasted little more than twelve years ending tragically in suicide at 31, Bugatti captured the essence of every animal; their gait, motion and physiology. Bugatti's empathy with his subjects rendered each sculpture not only an aesthetic masterpiece, but also a study of the interconnection of human and animal traits.
Caught mid-stride, Bugatti's 'Elephant d'Asie en Marche' evokes the delicate charm that resides within the colossal animal. For the eight years following 1907, Bugatti lived on and off in Antwerp visiting the zoo, at the time the largest in Europe, practically daily. Permitted access to private areas, Bugatti would position himself in front of the animal enclosures for long periods of time feeding and observing the members of the menagerie. In Antwerp he discovered the Asian elephant after which the present bronze is modeled, with its significantly smaller ears than the African elephants he encountered in Paris and had previously sculpted.
Executed in two sizes, the present larger version of the 'Elephant d'Asie en Marche' is numbered 1 of an edition of 5 and was executed by Adrien Hébrard for an M. Tiffany of New York in 1913, likely Louis Comfort Tiffany (1858-1933) who is known to have acquired other animal bronzes by Bugatti, namely three casts of the smaller version of this particular model, as well as a cast of the 'Eléphant de l'Inde au feuillage ou Gros Eléphant jouant' (sold Christie's, Collection Claude et Simon Dray, Paris, 8 June 2006, lot 293).
This present bronze bears a plaque commemorating its presentation to William Barnes, the owner and publisher of the Albany Times-Union who in 1915 famously and unsuccessfully charged ex-President Theodore Roosevelt with libel for describing him as a crooked Republican boss making deals with corrupt Tammany Hall Democrats.
The original plaster for the present model was exhibited at the Société Royale de Zoologie in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1910. Five recorded copies of this model were cast by A. A. Hébrad. Cast number 2 from the edition is in the permanent collection of the Museée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, France.
cf. V. Fromanger, Rembrandt Bugatti: Répertoire Monographique, Paris, 2009, p. 308, no. 229.