Herbert Cawood

Bronze by Herbert Cawood of Sir Lugard

1938

The Diorama was in a private collection for more than 20 years and is said to have been exposed at the China Exposition 1902 in Copenhagen.This group of Chinese polychromed-decorate...

Mechelen dolls are rare wooden devotional figurines (mainly walnut was used), which were made by some members of the Guild of Saint Luke. The figures, all individual saints, were made from reference models using highly regulated carving and polychrome techniques. They had to meet several requirements. The shape of the rug had to meet certain criteria and the letter M (from Mechelen) had to be visible in the shape. These devotional or saint figurines...

Gustave FONTAINE ( Etterbeek 1877-1952 Brussels). Sculptor–painter. Took courses in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, continued his training at the Academy of Brussels and with the sculptor Julien Dillens...

An exceptionally beautiful antique French wood carving, made in the 17th century. It depicts Madonna standing with open offering arms .The...

Fine Group of Sculptures in Bronze after Jean de Boulogne (Giambologna) The torturously twisting Rape of the Sabine Women is one of the finest and most technically difficult sculpt...

Ferdinand Barbedienne (Saint-Martin-de-Fresnay 1810 – 1892 Paris) after Lorenzo Ghiberti (Florence, 1378 – 1455) Signed at the lower right of the principal relief: F. BARBEDIENNE Provenance: Private Collection, USA. Barbedienne’s “Gates of Paradise” reliefs are one of the triumphs of nineteenth-century bronze casting and patination. The nine panels that comprise our example are half-size reductions of the famous originals by Lorenzo Ghiberti, made for the Baptistery of Florence and now housed in the Museo del Opera del Duomo. Mounted in an impressive, mullioned frame surround, our work is an exceptional exemplar of the Renaissance Revival, the broadly influential style and movement that infused architecture, design, and artistic culture in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The central scene, The Story of Joseph, is perhaps the most celebrated of the entire series depicting as it does seven episodes from the Biblical narrative integrated into a single composition: Joseph cast by his brethren into the well, Joseph sold to the merchants, the merchants delivering Joseph to the pharaoh, Joseph interpreting the pharaoh’s dream, the pharaoh paying him honor, Jacob sending his sons to Egypt, and Joseph recognizes his brothers and returns home. The surrounding reliefs—two vertical figures in niches, two recumbent figures, and four portrait heads in roundels—are as well faithful reductions of Ghiberti’s original bronzes on other parts of the doors. The maker of these casts was the renowned 19th-century French fondeur Ferdinand Barbedienne. Gary Radke has recently written of this great enterprise: “The Parisian bronze caster Ferdinand Barbedienne began making half-sized copies of ancient and Renaissance sculpture in the 1830s. His firm benefitted enormously from the collaboration of Achille Collas, whom Meredith Shedd has shown was one of numerous pioneers in the mechanical reproduction of sculpture. Their competitors largely devoted themselves to reproducing relief sculpture, but Collas devised a process for creating fully three-dimensional copies. A tracing needle, powered by a treadle, moved over the surface of a full-sized plaster cast or bronze of the original and triggered a complementary action in a cutting stylus set over a soft plaster blank…He signed an exclusive contract with Barbedienne on November 29, 1838, and won medals for his inventions in 1839 and 1844. Barbedienne’s half-sized copies of the Gates of Paradise were famous not only for their fidelity to the original, but also for the way their gilding…suggested the glimmering surface that was hidden under centuries of dirt. Some critics even saw Collas’s and Barbedienne’s work as ‘philanthropic, an exemplary adaptation of industry to the requirements of art, the artist, the workers, and the public alike.’ At 25,000 francs, Collas’s and Barbedienne’s reduction of the Gates of Paradise was singularly more expensive than any other item for sale in their shop. All the reliefs, individual statuettes, and busts were cast separately and could be purchased either by the piece or as an ensemble. Fittingly, Barbedienne’s accomplishment earned him the Grand Prix at the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, along with numerous other medals.” Three complete examples of the Barbedienne-Ghiberti doors are known. One, first installed in a chapel in the Villa Demidoff of San Donato near Pratolino, was later acquired by William Vanderbilt...

Hermann Rastorfer was a draftsman, painter, sculptor, illustrator, ceramist, designer, poster artist, developer of advertising concepts and communication campaigns, inventor, and architect. He began as a typesetter in Salzburg. In the mid-1950s, he moved to Germany, where he soon founded his own studio for graphic design and advertising. His goal was always to give each product a distinctive, highly recognizable appearance. He designed his own design line for the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, artistic cover images for numerous paperbacks from renowned publishers, and packaging for well-known products such as Ferrero Küsschen, Mon Chéri, Martell cognac...

CARLO RAMPAZZI (b. 1949) Seating Group 2007 Sofa covered in green mohair velvet, supported by a bronze structure slide; Armchairs with shell artisan decoration, with green Haute Cout...