A FRENCH GILT-BRONZE FIGURE ENTITLED 'COURAGE MILITAIRE', cast from a model by Paul Dubois, the soldier seated, looking to his right, wearing a helmet surmounted by a griffin and classical armour and drapery, his right hand resting on his right thigh, his left hand holding a sword, on a bow-fronted naturalistic square base, signed to the reverse P.DUBOIS and with the founders inscription to one side F.BARBEDIENNE, Fondeur, Paris and the numbers 331 and with the REDUCTION MECANIQUE A.COLLAS BREVETE stamp impressed in a roundel, the underside impressed I within a square, third quarter 19th Century

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A FRENCH GILT-BRONZE FIGURE ENTITLED 'COURAGE MILITAIRE', cast from a model by Paul Dubois, the soldier seated, looking to his right, wearing a helmet surmounted by a griffin and classical armour and drapery, his right hand resting on his right thigh, his left hand holding a sword, on a bow-fronted naturalistic square base, signed to the reverse P.DUBOIS and with the founders inscription to one side F.BARBEDIENNE, Fondeur, Paris and the numbers 331 and with the REDUCTION MECANIQUE A.COLLAS BREVETE stamp impressed in a roundel, the underside impressed I within a square, third quarter 19th Century
6in. (15.2cm.) wide; 20in. (50.7cm.) high; 7½in. (19cm.) deep

Lot Essay

Paul Dubois (d.1905) studied in Paris under Toussaint, exhibiting at the Salon for the first time in 1857. Travelling extensively through Italy, the Renaissance influence is clearly reflected in his work. In 1878 he was appointed director of the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts.
In the late 1860s, Dubois began work on the Monument to General Lamoricière, showing two groups for it in the Salon of 1876, the present model of Courage Militaire and the group entitled Charité. The completed ensemble was shown at the Exposition Universelle of 1878 and subsequently installed at the Cathedral of Nantes in 1879. Reductions of the two popular groups were cast by Barbedienne thereafter.

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