PRIEUR BARTHÉLEMY (1536 - 1611)

PRIEUR BARTHÉLEMY (1536 - 1611). Woman pulling a thorn from her foot. The artwork is accompanied by an export licence. The artwork is accompanied by the expertise by Dr. Charles Avery of September 2020 (an excerpt of which is edited below) and by a document of examination of the metal alloy. Mark ""BM"" on the truncated top of the tree stump (Boissel de Monville). Dimension of the marble base: 8.5x10x10 cm. Provenance: Baron Hippolyte Boissel de Monville (1794-1873), collector and agent, especially for the Rothschilds; ""Catalogue de la Précieuse Collection de Bronzes Italiens des XVe et XVI siècles, composant la ColLection de M B. de M [onville]"", Drouot, Paris 24-25 January 1861, lot 11, sold for 750 Fr .; Comparative literature: W. Bode, ""Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan: Bronzes of the Renaissance and subsequent periods"", Paris 1910, pp. XXXIV-V; G. Brière and M.-M. Lamy, ""L'inventaire de Barthélémy Prieur, sculpteur du roi"", in Bulletin historique et littéraire de la Société du Protestantisme francais, XCVI, (Paris 1949, pp. 41-68); C. Grodecki, ""Documents du Minutier Centrai des Notaires de Paris: histoire de art aux XVIe siècle"" (Cl 540-1600), II, Paris 1986, pp. 129-33; M. Buckling, ""Die Negervenus"", Liebieghaus, Fratùcfurt-am-Main, 1991; A. Lefebure, ""L'atelier de Barthélemy Prieur et imagerie royale sous le règne d'Henri IV"", and R. Seelig-Teeuwen, ""Barthélemy Prieur, portraitiste d'Henri IV et Marie de Medicis"", in Avènement d 'Henri IV, quatrième centenaire, vol. 5, Les arts au temps d'Henri IV, Association Henri IV, 1989 (Pau, 1992); R. Seelig-Teeuwen, ""Barthélemy Prieur, contemporain de Germain Pilon"", in Germain Pilon et les sculpteurs francais de la Renaissance (Louvre, Conférences et colloques. La Documentation française) (Paris 1993), pp. 365-85; A. Radcliffe, ""The Robert H. Smith Collection: Bronzes 1500-1600"", London 1994; R. Seelig-Teeuwen, ""Prieur"", in The Dictionary of Art, London, 1996, vol. 25, pp. 576-77; A. Radcliffe and N. Penny, ""Art of the Renaissance Bronze 1500-1650"", The Robert H. Smith Collection, London, 2004: R. Seelig-Teeuwen, ""Prieur"", in The Encyclopedia of Sculpture, New York / London 2004, pp. 1362-65; R. Seelig-Teeuwen, '""Barthélémy Prieur"", in G. Bresc-Bautier & G. Scherf [ed.], Bronzes francais de la Renaissance au Siècle des lumières, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, 2009, pp. 102-47, pp. 136 -38; R. Seelig-Teeuwen, D. Bougarit and F. G. Bewer, '""Barthélémy Prieur fondeur, son atelier, ses methods-de travail"", French Bronze Sculpture: Materials andTechniques 161h -18th century, London 2014, pp. 18-38. Barthélémy Prieur was a French sculptor working in stone and marble who - especially towards the end of his life - specialized in casting bronze statuettes in series that were aimed to attract retail commerce (slightly preceding the efforts of the Fiorentine sculptor-foundryman Antonio Susini with his statuettes after models by Giambologna). Between 1564 and 1567 he worked at the court of Duke Emanuele­ Filiberto di Savoia at Turin and, while he was in Italy, he may have visited Florence, Milan and Rome. He is recorded in Paris in 1571, where, for a cousin of his first patron, Madeleine de Savoie, he executed two bronze Virtues for the monument to the heart of the Connestabile Anne de Montmorency, her late husband. An inventory drawn up after the death of Prieur's first wife in 1583 reveals his affluence, and the range of the models that he was producing in bronze. On account of being a Protestant, he fled to Sedan, where in 1591 he was named sculptor to the king by Henri IV. Returning to Paris with that monarch in 1594, he became involved in the architectural decoration of the Palais du Louvre, as well as preparing statues for the monument of Henri IV and of his queen, Marie de' Medici. A quarter of a century later another inventory, drawn up after Prieur's own death in 1611, reveals a still wider range of models of small bronzes in the process of production - plaster moulds, wax casting­ models, and bronzes, some only partly finished, standing in rows in the foundry, etc. These included images of the king and queen, most famous of which is a group of King Henri IV on horseback defeating his enemies, animals, and classical or genre figures of humans. PRIEUR'S NUDE LADIES: Characteristic of Prieur's many statuettes and busts of young women, which - like the present example - are nearly always secular, indeed pagan, classical nymphs or goddesses - and children -often Cupid, or ordinary, naughty little boys - is the profile of the face such as is used here: a high forehead sloping back in an almost 'Grecian ' continuous line from a small nose, with a reced ing hairline, while small pursed lips appear above a daintily receding chin. Several of Prieur's statuettes depict nude women attending to their toilet. When cataloguing an excellent example of the present type, Radcliffe wrote in 1994 and repeated it (with N. Penny) in 2004: