Bust of a Gentleman, 1900s, Terracotta

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The terracotta bust, placed on a colored marble pedestal, depicts a male figure with his hair tied in a ponytail … Read more The terracotta bust, placed on a colored marble pedestal, depicts a male figure with his hair tied in a ponytail with a ribbon. He is dressed in a collarless tailcoat with tasseled toggles and embroidery along the edges, a tailcoat with similar embroidery at the neck, and a lace tie. The sculptor signs the bust on the back, indicating his full name and proclaiming himself "Contois," meaning a native of Bourgogne Franche-Comté, a region located in the 25th Department of Doubs in eastern France. He also specifies his native town as "Naisons." On the back, the sculptor mistakenly writes both "Contois" and "Naisons" instead of "Comtois" and "Maisons." This information leads to the location indicated as Maisons-du-Bois-Lièvremont, a small village in Bourgogne Franche-Comté. Given the unimportance of the small village where he was born in the 18th century, this inscription should be interpreted as a celebration of his origins, as he must have worked in a more prestigious center. The historical and artistic information regarding Claude Munier is equally mysterious. In an article published in “L'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux” in 1908, Charles Oulmont (Mulhouse 1883 – Pontoise 1984), a writer and famous French art collector of the 18th century whose works were donated to various French museums such as the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg, Mulhouse and Besançon, asks for information about this sculptor of whom he knows two terracotta busts: the first a “superbe buste de Voltaire” signed on the back “Munier fecit”, and the second the portrait of a comedian, signed and dated on the base “Claude Munier 1780” (Charles Oulmont, L'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux, 30 March 1908, Paris, pp. 445-446.) Thanks to this information we are able to reconstruct a first corpus of this artist, even though these two works are still unknown, and thus the terracotta portrait presented here is Munier's only known work to date. Considering the significant studies of eighteenth-century French sculpture in recent decades, the lack of knowledge of this figure may be due both to its provenance from a small village in eastern France, and to adverse events that may have compromised his life, leading to his premature death. Supporting this possibility is the fact that the bust of a comedian, traced by Oulmont, also bears the same date—1780—as ours, further demonstrating that his activity must have spanned just a few years. This piece is attributed to the mentioned designer/maker. It has no attribution mark and no
official proof of authenticity,
however it is well documented in design history. I take full responsibility for any authenticity



issues arising from misattribution See less