9956 François Rude (1784-1855)
La Bonte (Goodness/kindness)
1838. the cast perhaps later circa 1870.
A workshop? plaster cast relief of La Bonte, part of a larger panel designed for the tomb of the sculptor, Pierre Cartellier (1757-1831) in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Rude was a pupil of Cartellier on arrival in Paris from Dijon in 1808.
Height: 43 ins (109 cms)
Width: 25.25 ins (64 cms)
Depth: 9 ins (22.5 cms)
£6,500
Description
François Rude arrived in Paris from Dijon in 1808 and studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. This education was principally in drawing, mostly classical subjects from casts or sculptures. In order to follow his chosen path as a sculptor, he was selected by Pierre Cartellier as a student in his successful workshop.
Following Cartellier’s death in 1831, his tomb in statuary white marble was completed and installed by 1839, directed and designed entirely by his former pupils; the overall design fell to his son-in-law Louis Petitot, with other works by Rude, Seurre, Dumont and Lemaire.
Designed in a Neo Classical Roman style, each sculptor contributed to the large relief figures with Petitot, his closest friend and collaborator completing the central portrait. The monument is in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris and is now listed as a Monument Historique.
A plaster maquette of La Bonté dated to 1838 is in the Louvre and an identical plaster cast relief to ours is in the Musée Rude, Dijon.
