Lot 89: A MARBLE SELF-PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH CHINARD

A MARBLE SELF-PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH CHINARD BY JOSEPH CHINARD (1756-1813), LYON OR ROME, CIRCA 1780-90 On an integrally carved marble plinth 39 ½ in. (100.3 cm.) high

(100.3 cm.) high

CIRCA 1780

Paris, Exposition Chinard au Musée des Arts décoratifs, November 1909 – January 1910.

S. Lami, Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs de l’École Française au dix-huitième siècle, Paris, I, 1910, reprinted 1970, p. 218. Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, Catalogues des Sculptures par Joseph Chinard de Lyon (1756-1813) formant la Collection de M. le Comte de Penha-Longa, 2 December 1911, lot 57. Paris, New York and Stockholm, Musée du Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Nationalmuseum, L’esprit créateur de Pigalle à Canova, Terre cuites européennes 1740-1840, 19 September 2003 – 29 August 2004, J. Draper and G. Scherf eds., pp. 41-42, no. 4.

Joseph Chinard. By descent, domaine du Greillon. Placed by the artist’s heirs inside a monument honouring the artist at the Cimetière de Loyasse (Lyon) in 1839. By descent, until sold in 1909. Chatel collection, Lyon. Private collection, Stuttgart. Galerie Fabius, July 1974. Galerie Koller, Zurich, 2 Nov. 1995, lot 4153. Galerie Koller, Zurich, 18 Sep. 1997, lot 710. Galerie Maurice Ségoura, Paris 1997. Private Collection, Paris, until 2010.

Paris, Exposition Chinard au Musée des Arts décoratifs, November 1909 – January 1910. Joseph Chinard was a native of Lyon and had his early training there before travelling to Italy in 1784. He spent three years in Rome and in 1786 won first prize for sculpture at the Accademia di S. Luca, the first Frenchman to have done so for 60 years. He returned to Lyon and successfully established himself, executing both public and private commissions. Following further stints in Paris and again in Rome, he returned to Lyon where he spent most of the remainder of his career. The present marble self-portrait of the artist is related to two terracotta versions of it, both of which are in French museums. What is thought to be the original model is in the musée Girodet in Montargis which was included in the recent exhibition of European terracottas, L’esprit créateur (loc. cit.). In his entry on the terracotta, Jim Draper suggests that Chinard’s pose is based on an antique marble of the orator Aeschines which had been excavated at Herculaneum in 1779, and which may have been seen by Chinard during one of his sojourns in Italy. The addition of the lion at the sculptor’s feet could be a reference to the sculptor’s courage in the face of political adversity, but it is almost certainly also intended as the sculptural equivalent of the artist’s habitual signature ‘Chinard de Lyon’. A second terracotta example is in the bibliotéque Marmottan de Boulogne-Billancourt and this seems to be a transitional model between the Montargis example and the present marble. Various subtle details exist but the most noticeable is the inclusion of a shirt collar visible under the heavy cloak worn by the artist. The marble differs again from the Marmottan figure in having a square base as opposed to a circular one seen on both of the terracottas. The marble offered here stood on the artist’s own tomb in the cemetery of Loyasse in Lyon, before being retrieved by the family. It is not known if the original terracotta was created with this intention, but the defiant yet introspective nature of the portrait, as well as the heavy cloak which recalls mourning figures of mediaeval tombs, all suggest that it may always have been destined to be Chinard’s final image of himself.