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Artist or Maker: ANTOINE-LOUIS BARYE 1795-1875
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Medium: bronze, dark brown and delicate green patina
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Dimensions: 34 by 30cm., 13 3/8 by 11¾in.
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Notes:
Barye's Theseus and the Centaur depicts a moment in the battle between the Lapiths of Thessaly and the centaurs of Arcadia when Theseaus saves Hippodamia, daughter of the king of the Lapiths, from a centaur by violently slaying him.
After a fourteen year lacuna, Barye exhibited his large plaster Theseus and the Centaur at the Paris Salon of 1850 to great acclaim. Théophile Gauthier wrote in response to viewing the work that it "showed that this Romantic who had been banned by the [Salon] jury was the modern sculptor who comes closest to Phidias and Greek sculpture."
The model for the present bronze differs from the plaster in that the base is lower and does not include plant life, as well as in the angle of the foreleg of the centaur. Most likely, Barye modelled this version in circa 1847, prior to the Salon model. He did exhibit a bronze of the model at the 1862 International Exhibition in London, which he offered for sale through Barbedienne.
RELATED LITERATURE
M. Poletti, & A. Richarme, Barye Catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Paris, 2000, pp.110-11, no.F34 and p.411, no.CS43; W. Johnston & S. Kelly, Untamed: The Art of Antoine-Louis Barye, ex. cat. Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 2006, pp.164-165, no.63
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