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Douglas Siler (16/2/2004)
Courriel adressé à Jan Piggot, conservateur à la Dulwich Picture Gallery, London: Could you please tell me if any information on James Pradier is included in your current exhibition on the Crystal Palace at Sydenham? As you probably are aware, plaster casts of two of his sculptures, The toilet of Atalanta (La toilette d'Atalante) and Venus disarming Cupid (Vénus et l'Amour), were on display at the Crystal Palace before it was destroyed by fire in 1936. The London Guildhall Library has these stereoviews of them:
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Also, would you happen to know where I might find a photograph or engraving showing Pradier's Pandora on display at the Crystal Palace Exhibition at Hyde Park in 1851?
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Jan Piggott (London, 17/2/2004)
Much regret, nothing on Pradier in our exhibition or in my book on the Crystal Palace. We have a lecture on the sculpture collection - some 2 000 casts - in a conference which I am organising on March 26 at the Dulwich Gallery, and I will ask the speaker. I was much interested in the Guildhall material - thank you. Pandora: I have carefully but unsuccessfully searched four periodicals and catalogues with engravings of 1851 sculpture. Nor do I find any views of the work in the catalogue for France or in the supplementary catalogue of illustrations. I note that the catalogue calls it a statuette. The author of the Macmillan Dictionary of Art entry, Philip Ward-Jackson, might be able to help?
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Douglas Siler (20/2/2004)
Any further suggestions you might be able to offer concerning possible sources will be appreciated. I am aware that there is an abundance of material in London, including archives, on the 1851 Exhibition but I have not yet been able to see it. With regard to the March 26 conference, is there only one speaker or several? If there are several, could you send me the complete programme?
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Jan Piggott (21/2/2004)
The conference consists of six papers on the Fine Arts Courts at the Sydenham Palace. I will post you a flyer. John Kenworthy-Browne is speaking about the sculpture cast collection. From what he tells me, very little work has been done on the sculpture at either of the Crystal Palace exhibitions. The Archive of the 1851 Commissioners is extensive, and the Victoria and Albert Museum sculpture department will doubtless help you.
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Douglas Siler (21/2/2004)
I look forward to receiving the flyer and if you could ask John K.-B. if he knows of a photograph or engraving showing Pradier's Pandora on display in 1851, I would be very grateful.
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Jan Piggott (22/2/2004)
John says he will not refer to Pradier in his lecture. He says you should get into touch with Philip Ward-Jackson at the Conway Library, Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Strand.
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Jonathan Lill (20/11/2007)
I am researching the cast collection of the Crystal Palace, when relocated to the site at Sydenham London in 1854. There were three casts representing James Pradier:
– #116 Venus disarming Cupid
– #116* a child
– and the toilet of Atalant [uncatalogued.]
I am trying to trace the present location of the originals and thought perhaps you might know of the location of the first piece. I think it might be at the Musée des beaux-arts et d'archéologie de Besançon, but cannot find any more information. This period of sculpture is sorely neglected in libraries and museums.
I have very much enjoyed reading your site.
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Douglas Siler (1/12/2007)
Thanks for your mail, which I read with great interest. You may have noticed the announcement I posted on my site about an exposition on the Crystal Palace organized in 2004 by Jan Piggott at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. I mentioned there that the London Guildhall Library had stereoviews showing Pradier's La Toilette d'Atalante and Vénus et l'Amour on display at the Crystal Palace (see above). You can read all about Vénus et l'Amour here in my study Nouvelles de Russie (I). The original marble work was purchased in 1849 by Tsar Nicolas I and is at the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg. Pradier gave a plaster cast in 1842 to the Musée Rath in Geneva, now the Musée d’art et d’histoire. Signed and dated « J. Pradier 1836 », this cast was destroyed in a fire in 1987. More than twenty reductions in bronze, plaster, terra-cotta, etc. are known but I have seen no mention of a reduction or cast in Besançon. Could the information you have concern some other work there by Pradier?
The original marble of La Toilette d’Atalante, as you probably know, is on display in the « Salle Pradier » at the Louvre. In addition to the plaster cast at Sydenham, the following casts are listed in Claude Lapaire’s James Pradier et la sculpture française de la génération romantique (not yet published):
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Angers, Musée des beaux-arts. Don Auguste Griffard, vers 1880.
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Copenhague, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, N 601. Épreuve commandée au Louvre en 1888.
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Genève, MAH. Acquis en 1911.
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Nîmes, Musée des beaux-arts depuis 1953. Auparavant au Musée de Picardie à Amiens, envoi de l'État en 1887.
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Paris, Musée des monuments français. Épreuve présentée à l'Exposition centennale de l'art français, 1900, n° 1767.
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Also listed are several dozen reductions in various locations and sales.
You mention that this work is uncatalogued. Does a catalogue of the sculptures at Sydenham actually exist? If so, I would be interested to know where it can be found.
With regard to « #116* a child », this could be one of several known works by Pradier depicting children. If you could send me an illustration I might be able to identify it.
Concerning 19th century sculpture in general, you mention that it is sorely neglected in libraries and museums. In fact, there has been an abundance of new publications and research on the subject over the last 10-20 years, especially in France. The site www.latribunedelart.com is a good place to follow the latest developments. And until Claude Lapaire’s long-awaited catalogue is in print (hopefully next year), you should try to see the catalogue Statues de chair. Sculptures de James Pradier (1985) and also my edition of Pradier’s Correspondance (Librairie Droz, Geneva, 1984-, (3 vols. in print, and 2 in preparation).
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Jonathan Lill (1/12/2007)
Firstly, can I tell you how much I appreciate your response.
I thought I had read all of your site when I contacted you, and only found the mention of the Crystal Palace exhibition at Dulwich Gallery afterwards. I did visit the exhibition in 2004, which was organised by Jan Piggott, who also published a book The People's Palace, both to commemorate the 150th relocation of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham in 1854. There is a preview of his book on Google Books. I am in regular contact with Mr. Piggott, but as the Crystal Palace contained such a variety of subjects, he wasn't able to go into much detail in the book and has now moved on to other areas and topics of research.
The first catalogue of the cast collection of English, French, and German contemporary sculpture is in A Handbook to the Courts of Modern Sculpture by Anna Jameson published 1854. This must have been written in anticipation of the opening, and casts present even in the 1850's must have arrived too late to have been included. The handbook is available as a reprint, with the index on Google Books. There are no illustrations and not all of the titles of works were accurate, and confirming identification has been the basis of my research.
There is a list of casts for insurance purposes made in the 1850's, with costs of purchase, transportation and suppliers, and I must find the time to look at it. Included were some of the German sculptor Dannecker's original models.
I have not found another record till a partial list in a guidebook circa 1898, and another list for insurance from 1909, but neither are very accurate, and without catalogue numbers.
The last and most complete catalogue I have found is just a very long list printed in the last guides to the Palace, from the 1930's, by which time there have been many additions of mainly English works, some added from the 1850's including Clésinger's Francois I up to works of the 1910's. All the casts had been rearranged many times since then and were all renumbered.
The fire of 1936 destroyed all but a few casts of mediaeval royal tombs which are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The entry for James Pradier in A Handbook to the Courts of Modern Sculpture reads as follows (page 44):
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James Pradier born at Geneva in 1794, studied at Paris under Lemot, died at Paris in 1852. The fame of this accomplished sculptor rests principally on the success with which he represented the un-draped female figure, and the exquisite softness and delicacy with which he worked the marble. In this he has far exceeded Canova, but has also exceeded him in the leaning to the sensual and the meretricious in sentiment. His statue of Phryne, the Athenian courtesan (which was in our Great Exhibition of 1851), was a signal example of his highest merit and his greatest defects.
116. VENUS DISARMING CUPID. Group. Life size.
Kneeling on one knee, she takes his bow from him while he leans against her. Classical subject. From the combination of the figures it seems to be fitted for a certain space or locality; the treatment of the flesh, and modelling of the forms, particularly in the figure of Cupid, most skilful.
116* A CHILD. Recumbent Statue.
It appears to be a monumental figure, and to represent one of the Orleans family.
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In the 1930's cast 116 is listed as 372 in the south nave, 116* as 209 located in the Religious Court, and The Toilet of Atalanta as 257 in the Secular Court. These locations were all in the south nave which bore the worst of the fire. Below is one of The Toilet of Atalanta in the very short-lived Court of French and Italian Sculpture and another of Venus disarming Cupid. I am hoping that the figure behind Atalanta is cast 83* Bacchante by Jean Auguste Barre (1811-1896). Beyond that is a work by Fraikin. I also have a VERY grainy photograph of the Secular Court, if you would be interested.
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I have only just discovered an image of L'ingénuité by Louis Desprez 1799-1870, cast 97 at the Crystal Palace, submitted on Wikipedia, and have created a page for the artist. I had found a listing in a catalogue for the Louvre, but without illustration or location and have yet to recieve a response from the Louvre. I feel this is why website's such as your own provide such a valuable service.
It would perhaps have been clearer for me to say that this period of sculpture is very neglected in the United Kingdom. The Crystal Palace cast collection remains a unique attempt to exhibit continental sculpture in this country. I am afraid I am not multi-lingual and the little I have found is all in the respective languages and I am painfully slow in translating them. Certainly this period of English sculpture is seldom studied here. I have for example, had very little luck finding anything representative of the Hermitage's collection of Sculpture. There was an exhibition of Josephine Bonaparte's taste at Malmaison, at Somerset House recently, but nothing on sculpture, and the partnership with the Hermitage has now come to an end. I did find a mention of Cartelier's Modesty [cast 85 at the Crystal Palace] in the Grove Dictionary of Art as being in the Historical Museum in Amsterdam, but when I contacted them, they seemed to know nothing of it. I haven't been able to find a copy of G. Hubert's Catalogue Raisonne of this artist in any library in this country either.
I can't remember the entry I found for Pradier at Bensançon, but will find it again for you.
Were you aware of the work of www.plastercasts.org?
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Douglas Siler (3/12/2007)
Many thanks for your very informative and detailed reply. I don't recall having seen the two daguerreotypes and am very pleased to have them. Afterwards I found one of them (Atalanta) on the Sydenham Town Forum, which has a wealth of material on the Crystal Palace. Yes, I was aware of the www.plastercasts.org site but I hadn't looked at it for a long time. Thanks for reminding me.
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