Jean-Joseph Perraud

JEAN-JOSEPH PERRAUD (Monay 1819-Paris, 1876).
"The childhood of Bacchus". 1959.
Patinated bronze.
Signed "Perraud" and dated on the base.
With Normand foundry stamp on the back of the base.
Wooden base painted white.
Measurements: 123 x 37 x 37 cm (sculpture); 93,5 x 44 x 44 cm (base).

Dionysus child, standing on the left shoulder of Silenus, the satyr who was his mentor, holds the thyrsus with one hand while with the other he plays with the ear of the satyr, who laughs showing all his teeth. Silenus' expression and the turgid anatomy of his stocky body, seated cross-legged on a tree stump, have been rendered with great technical skill and ability to capture the liveliness of the spontaneous play between the two characters. The bronze artist was inspired by the sculptural group "The Childhood of Bacchus" by Jean-Joseph Perraud, kept at the Pasteur Museum in Paris.

Jean-Joseph Perraud was a French academic sculptor. According to biographer Eaton, "during the Second Empire, no other sculptor enjoyed a greater reputation." From the age of fifteen he was apprenticed in the cabinetmaking workshop of Duvernoy senior, and later of Pontarlier. He was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1843 being a pupil of Jules Ramey and Augustin-Alexandre Dumont. Co-winner of the Prix de Rome in 18471 with Telemachus, he brought to Falanto the urn with the ashes of Hippias (Fénelon, The Adventures of Telemachus)2 in plaster, preserved at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Paris. Medal of first class at the Universal Exhibition of 1855, the Legion of Honor in 1857 and member of the Institute in 1865, which ensured him official contracts until the end of his life. Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1867, and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He was an academic, neoclassical and romantic sculptor. He donated his workshop and his private art collection to the city of Lons-le-Saunier. He is buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse. His best and best known works include the following: "The Childhood of Bacchus" of 1863, now in the Louvre (the 1859 version in the Musée Pasteur); figure of Jérôme Lalande , facade of the Louvre museum; Lyric Drama of 1865-69, group of figures on the facade of the theater of the Palais Garnier. Berlin figure on the facade of the Gare du Nord station; "Despair", in the Musée d'Orsay, 1869, Statue of Saint Denis, in the Church of Saint Vaast, Arras, Pas-de-Calai; Bust of Pierre Jean de Béranger, marble, Paris Musée Carnavalet.