6092
BARYE, Antoine-Louis
Paris 1795 - Paris 1875Surtout de table, La chasse au tigre
"Surtout de table": Tiger Hunt
1834-1836
bronze, lost-wax cast with brown varnish patina over a metallic flake or powdered surface with details highlighted by leaf gilding
group
Dimensions (HxWxD): 27 3⁄4 x 14 in.
Acc. No.: 27.176
Credit Line: Acquired by William T. Walters, 1872
Photo credit: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
© Artist:
Provenance
- 1834, Duc d'Orléans, by commission
- 1853, Paris, duchesse d'Orleans Sale, no. 1
- Count Anatole Demidoff [M. Jaunez as agent]
- 1870, March 22-24, Paris, San Donato Sale, cat. 1536
- Philippe Burty
- 1872, February 20, Baltimore, William T. Walters, by purchase [George A. Lucas as agent]
- 1894, Baltimore, Henry Walters, by inheritance
- 1931, Walters Art Museum, by bequest
Comment
- Museum's information, April 2013:
One can imagine this hunting scene taking place in the exotic East. This sculpture originally stood on a five-foot-high, gilt-bronze triumphal arch in the middle of the duke of Orléans's centerpiece. Three Indians, perched in the box-like howda, defend themselves from a tiger clawing its way up the elephant's back. The driver, riding on the elephant's neck, is about to strike the tiger with his barbed goad. A second tiger, already wounded by a spear, seizes one of the elephant's rear feet. Barye derived this subject from various sources, including a 17th-century Persian miniature.
The inscription around the sculpture's base identifies the piece as having been cast by Honoré Gonon and his two sons using the more costly lost-wax process, rather than sand casting. Gonon was credited with reviving this technique, which faithfully replicates the details of the original model.