Lot 69: w - COMTE HENRI-GEOFFROY DE LA PLANCHE DE RUILLE FRENCH, 1842-1922

A GROUP OF TWO HORSES AND JOCKEYS TAKING A JUMP

measurements note
49 by 74.5 by 35cm., 19¼ by 29¼ by 13¾in.

signed: Cte G. de Ruille

bronze, rich dark brown patina

NOTE

Comte Geoffroy de Ruillé, as he is more commonly known, was born in Angers in 1842 and exhibited at the Salon between 1884 and 1921. He was clearly as talented a horseman as he was sculptor, for a painting by René Princeteau (1849-1914) in the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi, entitled Le Comte Geoffroy de Ruillé chassant à courre avec son fils à ses côtés, shows him at full gallop across a field with the Château de Gallerande, the family estate, behind him. De Ruillé's Salon submissions were exclusively equestrian and were cast in very limited editions; they appear rarely on the market. The last time the present model appeared at Sotheby's was in 1984. Amongst his known models are Le Dernier effort, Steeple-Chase, (1887, possibly identifiable with the present bronze), la Rentrée du vainqueur (1888), Cheval d'attelage (1884), Portrait d'un général à cheval (1890), Chasseur du I^er Empire (1906) and Au Manège (1909). They show him to have been a gifted and competent sculptor who delighted in portraying horses in action, resembling in many respects, the work of his contemporary, the aristocratic sculptor Comte du Passage.

RELATED LITERATURE
Payne, pp.327, 418-19; Horswell, p.281