Taureau debout, première version (Standing bull, first version)

Together with Thésée combattant le Minotaure (see lots 150-1) and Taureau cabré (see previous lot), Barye's model of a noble bull preparing to charge was among the sculptor's five works rejected by the 1843 Salon committee. Poletti and Richarme estimate the total number of épreuves to be less than thirty, all cast by 1857, when editions of the second version of the model (see lot 149) took over.