Author: Ernest Simon Auscher

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13: 9781230469881

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ...manufacture of the most sumptuous "garnitures " for the palace of Louveciennes, and on the production in "biscuit" of the famous bust of Madame Dubarry, modelled by Pajou. Although Marie-Antoinette was immediately interested in the productions of the factor', she had no direct influence upon it until after her coronation in 1774. Yet she soon became a patroness of Sevres for, from 1771 to 1774, part of the personnel was employed in making, for her, furniture and garnitures of all kinds analogous to, or identical with, those which had been made for the Dubarry. The director of the works, who was a good courtier, had already produced in 1772 a "biscuit" group, modelled by Pajou, and called " The Marriage of Louis XVI." In this group the Dauphin is on the left, the Dauphiness on the right, clasping their hands on a kind of altar surmounted by a globe ornamented with "fleurs-de-lys." The front of the altar had the inscription "Au bonheur public" while the pedestal bore, in low relief, garlands of flowers, and a royal monogram composed of the initials "L." and "A." intertwined. About 1773, the sculptor Pajou made a bust of MarieAntoinette in which, while we cannot but admire the regal attitude of the daughter of an empress and the wife of a mighty prince, we are still more charmed by the juvenile freshness and grace of the woman, the beauty of her features, and the arrangement of her hair. In this model Pajou certainly produced one of the finest works of the eighteenth century, and it seems like the irony of fate that it can only be compared with the busts of the Dubarry produced by the same sculptor. In the Petit Trianon an example of this bust, doubtless made at...