Large Plaster Statue from Jacques Callot, 1800s

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An exceptional plaster statue of Jacques Callot,
which was entered in the 1869 competition in Nancy (Lorraine), to adorn the … Read more An exceptional plaster statue of Jacques Callot,
which was entered in the 1869 competition in Nancy (Lorraine), to adorn the monument in what is now Place Vaudémont.

The committee for the Jacques Callot statue, created in 1867,
organized a major national competition to erect a
statue (the project was long-standing) to the famous Lorraine engraver,
one of the region's most illustrious sons. Seventeen artists
entered the competition and exhibited their plaster sketches in the summer of 1869 in the nave of the Church of Saint-Epvre,
which was then undergoing complete reconstruction. After deliberation by the
jury, the work of Eugène Laurent, from Paris, was chosen as the
winner. The execution of the project then took several
years, delayed by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and a
lack of funding, which was raised solely through public subscription. Finally, the statue, cast in bronze by Barbedienne, was inaugurated in 1877 (the final plaster cast, dated 1874, is now kept at the Lycée Cyfflé in Nancy).

Alfred Daubrée, the driving force behind the committee, even made it his advertising banner and produced commemorative medals and statuettes.

Unfortunately, the archives do not preserve the list of the 17 candidates, mainly from Paris. While we know the names of Révillon (no. 7), Bailly (no. 6), Laurent (no. 5 - awarded), de Blézer (no. 3 - awarded), and Noël Louis (no. 1 - awarded), the others are unknown, with the exception of Krémer, a sculptor from Nancy (no. 15). The photograph from 1869 (where only 13 statues appear) unfortunately does not allow us to read the two-digit number assigned to our statue. statue. The other statues bear, from
left to right, the numbers 9-7-6-10-5-3-1-8-2-4-14 and
16. Our statue could therefore correspond to numbers
11, 12, 13, 15, or 17. It is tempting to see it as the work of
Krémer, a member of the jury and unsuccessful candidate who did
everything possible to win (his project
received only one vote).

The works of the unsuccessful candidates,
including our sculpture, were lost immediately after the competition. However,
given their highly decorative value, one can easily imagine that most of the sculptors
tried to sell their works in order to recoup the
time spent creating them (only the three selected by the
committee received a prize).

Some losses to the plaster should be noted; the base is made of reconstituted stone and wood. See less