ANTIQUE MARBLE SCULPTURE.
A WHITE MARBLE GROUP OF BACCHUS
BY BARON HENRI JOSEPH DE TRIQUETI (1807-1874)
French –Circa 1860.
Signed: H. De TRIQUETI
A carved white marble group depicting two figures in lively movement: the youthful god Bacchus, a wreath of vines in his hair, his body draped with a wolf’s skin, is shown seated on a full wine-skin placed on a rock entwined with further vines, his arms outstretched playing cymbals; the naked figure of a putto stands at his knee, his right arm reaching up with a horn-shaped wine-cup.
Bacchus (Dionysus in Greece), the Roman god of wine, was the son of Jupiter and Semele, and represented not only the intoxicating powers of wine, but its social and beneficent influences, and he was also viewed as the promoter of civilisation, a lawgiver, and a lover of peace.
Baron Henri Joseph Francois Triqueti was the son of the Sardinian ambassador to the Russian court. From the start of his career he was supported by the d’Orleans family, who bought his paintings and later bestowed upon him the commissions for the doors of La Madeleine and the tomb effigy of the Duc d’Orleans. He was a student of Hersent and exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1831-1861. He won the second class medal for sculpture at his debut in 1831 and the first class in 1859, and was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1842.
Triqueti travelled extensively throughout Europe and made hundreds of drawings of great masterpieces of art which would later influence his own style, and was dubbed “sculptor to princes” by the critics due to his privileged position in court circles. He was a friend of many prominent figures of the Romantic era, and quickly gained recognition for his decorative work. When his bronze doors for the church of La Madeleine in Paris were installed in 1841, they were immediately hailed as a masterpiece of monumental sculpture by critics and public alike, ensuring his position as one of the official sculptors of the reign of Louis-Philippe. He subsequently collaborated on the grandiose tomb of Napoleon in Les Invalides, and numerous works of monumental sculpture for the new Louvre and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He then began the creation of large-scale decorative schemes, such as the reliefs and mosaics for the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle (1864-74), commissioned at the wish of Queen Victoria in memory of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, her husband, who had died in 1862 - sealing Triqueti’s reputation as one of the greatest sculptors of the century. He also worked as a painter and art historian, writing a paper entitled The Three Museums of London , was a designer and engraver, and assembled an important collection.
This sculpture was included in the joint Catalogue for the first two retrospective exhibitions dedicated to the work of the Romantic sculptor, Henri de Triqueti, held from October 2007-January 2008, at the Musee Gorodet, Montargis and the Musee des Beaux Arts, Orleans, under the direction of Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, chief curator, Department of Sculpture, Musee du Louvre.Height: 51” (130 cm)
