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Lot Essay
Frémin was a student of two of the super-star artists who largely defined sculpture at the court of Louis XIV, François Girardon and Antoine Coysevox. Frémin won the Académie prize in 1694 and spent the four following years at the French Academy in Rome. After returning to Paris, he was appointed to the Académie Royale in 1700 and for the next 20 years supplied a large group of impressive, late-Baroque sculpture, mostly for the gardens of the châteaux of Versailles, Chantilly and Marly. From 1721-1738, Frémin worked for the Spanish, King Philip V, with his most important commissions specifically for the gardens of the palace of La Granja.
This bust representing America, along with three other busts representing Europe, Africa and Asia, was first recorded in the collection of the financier Nicolas Beaujon. Beaujon’s collection was legendary, surely one of the most sophisticated collections in pre-revolutionary Paris and all housed in splendor at his palace, now known as the palais de l’Élysées, the storied residence of the President of the French Republic. While Beaujon’s paintings have received the most attention – the collection of Dutch Golden paintings was nearly encyclopedic -- his library and the sculpture and decorative arts were of an equally high level. Masson, in his 1937 article in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, describes just a fraction of the staggering collections (op. cit., pp. 47-59). While Souchal (op. cit.) noted the other three Continents were not located, the bust of Africa surfaced at auction in 2010 and is now in the collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l'Art, Geneva (sold Marc Arthur Kohn, Cannes, 4 August 2010, lot 223 for €68,000).
This bust has been long-attributed to Frémin. As early as 1787, in the Beaujon sale catalogue, and only 37 years after Frémin’s death, all four of the busts representing the Continents were identified as being by Frémin. And as late as 1977, François Souchal, the titanic scholar of French 17th and 18th century sculpture, published the present bust of America as by Frémin. However, as Dr. Fabienne Fravolo notes in her cataloguing of the bust of Africa for the Fondation Gandur, there is no archival or illustrated documentation to prove this conclusively. Fravolo also notes that both America and Africa appear to differ slightly from Frémin’s oeuvre and could relate more closely to other French sculptors active at the Spanish court, and in particular, for the palace of La Granja, such as Jacques Bousseau (1681-1740), Pierre Pitué or Hubert Dumandré (1701-1781), who all made use of the models left behind in Spain by Frémin after he returned to France. And, therefore, the busts of American and Africa could be slightly later in date and possibly by a French or Spanish sculpture working in Frémin’s style.
This bust representing America, along with three other busts representing Europe, Africa and Asia, was first recorded in the collection of the financier Nicolas Beaujon. Beaujon’s collection was legendary, surely one of the most sophisticated collections in pre-revolutionary Paris and all housed in splendor at his palace, now known as the palais de l’Élysées, the storied residence of the President of the French Republic. While Beaujon’s paintings have received the most attention – the collection of Dutch Golden paintings was nearly encyclopedic -- his library and the sculpture and decorative arts were of an equally high level. Masson, in his 1937 article in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, describes just a fraction of the staggering collections (op. cit., pp. 47-59). While Souchal (op. cit.) noted the other three Continents were not located, the bust of Africa surfaced at auction in 2010 and is now in the collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l'Art, Geneva (sold Marc Arthur Kohn, Cannes, 4 August 2010, lot 223 for €68,000).
This bust has been long-attributed to Frémin. As early as 1787, in the Beaujon sale catalogue, and only 37 years after Frémin’s death, all four of the busts representing the Continents were identified as being by Frémin. And as late as 1977, François Souchal, the titanic scholar of French 17th and 18th century sculpture, published the present bust of America as by Frémin. However, as Dr. Fabienne Fravolo notes in her cataloguing of the bust of Africa for the Fondation Gandur, there is no archival or illustrated documentation to prove this conclusively. Fravolo also notes that both America and Africa appear to differ slightly from Frémin’s oeuvre and could relate more closely to other French sculptors active at the Spanish court, and in particular, for the palace of La Granja, such as Jacques Bousseau (1681-1740), Pierre Pitué or Hubert Dumandré (1701-1781), who all made use of the models left behind in Spain by Frémin after he returned to France. And, therefore, the busts of American and Africa could be slightly later in date and possibly by a French or Spanish sculpture working in Frémin’s style.