Lot n° 293
Estimation :
3000 - 5000
EUR
WILLÈME FRANÇOIS (1830-1905) ET SON ATELIER.
Presumed portrait of Madeleine-Émilie Brohan (1833-1900), actress of the Comédie-Française.
Large porcelain biscuit figurine, faithfully representing the three-dimensional features of this famous French actress posing in a crinoline dress, holding a handkerchief in her right hand thanks to photosculpture techniques. Resting on a terrace base, bearing the faded inscription "Ph. Sculpture France". Inside, a handwritten inscription in brown ink probably in the name of its former owner : "Senoria xx Gangollo ??". Some cracks from firing, a small piece is missing at the end of the finger, but good condition.
French work of the Second Empire.
H. : 43 cm - W. : 28,5 cm - D. : 37,5 cm.
History : the photosculpture was invented by François Willème and patented in France in 1860 and in the United States in 1864. Painter, photographer and sculptor, François Willème developed a mechanical technique allowing the reproduction of living or inert objects by combining the use of photography and the pantograph allowing him to obtain a sculpture exactly similar to the model. His process is the ancestor of 3D printing. This invention met with great interest and aristocrats and celebrities of the Second Empire flocked to his workshop at 42 Avenue de Wagram. In spite of its success and its participation in the Universal Exhibition of 1867, the activity will end in August 1874. During this period, François Willème painted portraits of the Spanish royal family, the court of Napoleon III and the actors of the Comédie-Française, notably the Duc de Morny, Rainulphe d'Osmond, Sosthène II de La Rochefoucauld, Théophile Gautier, Ferdinand de Lesseps and Augustine Brohan, sister of the subject we are presenting.
Biography : Madeleine was the daughter of Augustine-Suzanne Brohan and the younger sister of Augustine Brohan, both actresses. She entered the Conservatoire at a very young age, attended the Samson classes and won a second prize in acting in 1839 and the first prize in 1840. She was admitted to the Comédie Française in 1850 at the age of seventeen, and her triumph in Les Contes de la reine de Navarre brought her to the attention of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the future president of the Republic, whose mistress she became. Later she became the mistress of the Prince of Joinville before beginning a long relationship with the young Paul Déroulède, of whom she had a child in 1866, Paul Langély, whom the poet (a minor at the time of their relationship) passed off as his godson.
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