François Pompon (1855-1933) - Lot 33

François Pompon (1855-1933) Foulque Bronze with brown patina Cast by Claude Valsuani in 1925 Signed "POMPON" on the right-hand side of the terrace between the two legs. Bears the founder's stamp "CIRE PERDUE C. VALSUANI" and numbered "3" on the back of the terrace. Dim. 28.3 cm and terrace 19.3 x 6.5 cm LJ Provenance : - Acquired from Galerie Saint Pierre in Lyon around 1925; Collection of a Lyonnais amateur, then by descent Related literature : -Catherine Chevillot, Liliane Colas, Anne Pingeot, François Pompon 1855-1933, cat. Exp. Paris, Musée d'Orsay, October 18, 1994 to January 22, 1995, Paris, Gallimard / Electa, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1994, model listed under no. 97, p.203 and p.122 and 123. Other examples listed: -François Pompon, Foulque, no. 1, signed "POMPON", stamped Valsuani and no. 1, provenance Galerie Saint Pierre, Lyon, public sale in 2024. Our bronze depicting a coot, a bird of the aquatic rallidae family, belongs to the repertoire of small animal subjects that sculptor François Pompon enjoyed creating by working with oversimplified forms. He particularly modeled barnyard animals, which he observed in the Normandy countryside, where he had acquired a house near that of his friend René de Saint-Marceau. He exhibited his first animal bronze, Le Poulet, at the 1892 Salon (no. 2992). The famous publisher Adrien Hébrard took an interest in his series of domestic animals, and in 1919, just after the end of the Great War, presented the first Pompon exhibition. The sculptor entrusted him with a series of fourteen animal models, including one of a moorhen (H. 19 cm), a bird similar to our Foulque. In 1922, the Polar Bear exhibition at the Salon gave Pompon a well-deserved reputation and led to wider distribution of his work. In 1925, Pompon teamed up with the Valsuani foundry and launched the production of his Foulque, for which he had designed the model around 1913. Our copy, signed "Pompon", bears the number "3" on the terrace, next to the founder's stamp, according to a numbering system corresponding to the contract signed in December 1924 between the sculptor and Alfred Poyet, director of Galerie Saint Pierre in Lyon. This contract limited the edition to twenty copies. As his account books show, Pompon delivered the first five copies, all numbered, to this gallery in 1925. In his notebook, the first buyer recounts his meeting with Pompon at the home of goldsmith and medallist Claudius Linossier in Lyon, and his subsequent visit to Pompon's "tiny studio" on rue Campagne Première in Paris, where he saw him at work. He bought Foulque n°3 from Galerie Saint-Pierre in 1925.