Antique Pair of French Bronze Marly Horses Sculptures by Cousteau 19th C

This is a fine antique pair of French Grand Tour patinated-bronze sculptures of the Marly Horses, Circa 1850 in date and signed to one base.

The original Marly Horses were commissioned by Louis XV of France, sculpted in Carrara marble, showing two rearing horses with their grooms, by Guillaume Coustou, and made in 1743 and completed in 1745. They now sit in the courtyard of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre Museum.

Both statues have a lovely dark brown patination which is shown in all its glory, and these high-quality hot cast solid bronze statues were produced using the traditional "lost wax" process, otherwise known as the "cire perdue" method.

The attention to detail here is remarkable and this truly beautiful pair of bronze statues are sure to receive the maximum amount of attention wherever placed.

Provenance:

Purchased from Duke's 25th January 2002, lot 812, purchase price £4080 GBP.

Condition:

In excellent condition with no dings, dents or signs of repair. Please see photos for confirmation.

Dimensions in cm:

Height 61 x Width 56 x Depth 30 & Weight 20.4 kg

Height 59 x Width 49 x Depth 24 & Weight 23.55 kg

Dimensions in inches:

Height 2 foot x Width 1 foot, 10 inches x Depth 1 foot & Weight 45.0 lbs

Height 1 foot, 11 inches x Width 1 foot, 7 inches x Depth 9 inches & Weight 51.9 lbs

The Marly Horses are two 1743–1745 Carrara marble sculpted groups by Guillaume Coustou, showing two rearing horses with their groom. They were commissioned by Louis XV of France for the trough at the entrance to the grounds of his Chateau de Marly. Coustou's last works, they were intended to replace two other sculpted groups, Mercury on Pegasus and Pegasus, Renown of Horses, both by Antoine Coysevox, which had been removed to the Tuileries Gardens in 1719.

Louis XV chose the modellos in 1743 and the full-size sculptures were completed in only two years, being installed at Marly in 1745. They proved highly successful in reproduction, particularly on a smaller scale, and prefigured Théodore Géricault and other Romantic artists' obsession with equestrian subjects. The Marly horses were later also used as the central motif of the monochrome 819-line RTF/ORTF test card which was used on TF1 from 1953 until 1983.

The originals were moved to the place de la Concorde in Paris in 1794 and Louis-Denis Caillouette (1790–1868) restored them in 1840. In 1984 it was concluded that the annual military parades on 14 July were damaging the sculptures and they were replaced by marble copies produced by Michel Bourbon in the studio of a subsidiary of Bouygues. The latter also gained the right to an extra copy, which was placed in Bouygues's social building. The original sculptures were moved to a former courtyard in the Richelieu wing of the Louvre Museum, which was renamed the 'cour Marly' in their honour, whilst Bourbon's two main copies were moved to the originals' first site near the trough at Marly, with work overseen by the architect Serge Macel.

Our reference: A3576