Ferdinand Baroperne

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Ferdinand Baroperne, portrait by Thomas Couture
Signature of Ferdinand Baroperne

Ferdinand Baroperne (born August 6, 1810 in Saint-Martin-de-Fresnay , Calvados department , France , † March 21, 1892 in Paris ) was a French sculptor , manufacturer of bronze goods and gallery owner . As one of the most important and popular editeurs d'art , i.e. as a publisher of art articles, he had most of the French sculptors of his time under contract.

life and work

Ferdinand Baroperne was the son of a farmer. At the age of 13 he learned the saddler's trade .

In 1822 he moved to Paris, where he initially worked as an employee in a wallpaper trade. He received seed capital from his employer to open his own business, which he set up in 1834 on Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. He pursued the idea of ​​exhibiting bronze statues in addition to his core business and producing them in small format in series.

In 1838 he teamed up with the mechanic Achille Collas , who had developed the machine á reduction ( réducteur for short ); a device based on the principles of the pantograph that could reproduce three-dimensional objects of any size - reduced or enlarged. On November 29, 1838, the two of them signed the founding contract for Société Ferdinand Baroperne et Achille Collas , which aimed at the commercial exploitation of the mechanized production of sculptural works for an initial 20 years. Baroperne took care of the commercial management of the company, while Collas brought in the patent for his invention and seven existing machines and was responsible for the production processes with his profound knowledge of the machinery. Together they decided on the choice of subject for the objects, the sales prices and all other financial matters.

In 1841 they brought out casts of the Apollo von Belvedere , the Spinario and 21 pieces with the motif of a bas-relief from the Parthenon . This was followed by versions of the Laocoon group , the Venus von Arles and the Borghesian fencer . At first there was particular interest in works from antiquity , for which casts from the Atelier de Moulage in the Louvre served as models. The company continued to produce works by representatives of the Renaissance such as Michelangelo , Donatello , Giovanni Bologna or by French sculptors such as Jean Goujon , Jean-François Flamand , Pierre Puget , François Girardon , Antoine Coysevox , Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain , Étienne-Maurice Falconet , Jacques Caffieri , Jean-Antoine Houdon and others. There was also great interest in works by well-known contemporary artists, with prizes such as the Prix ​​de Rome , membership in the Société des Artistes Français or the award of the Cross of the Legion of Honor being some of the selection criteria.

In 1843 Baroperne signed his first publishing contract with François Rude for the serial reproduction of the work of a contemporary artist for his life, which quickly helped the company to gain international renown. The first catalog was printed in the same year, and others followed about every two to three years. In 1847 the company founded a foundry in Paris, whereupon Baroperne became a member of the Réunion des Fabricants . Despite some difficulties during the February Revolution of 1848 , the company's activities expanded and now turned to the manufacture of handicrafts such as chimney pieces, chandeliers and candelabra. At the time, the Baropernes shop was on Boulevard Poissonière and the workshop was on Rue de Lancry. In 1851 he signed a contract with the sculptor Jules Cavelier for the unlimited edition of his work Pénélope , which - originally created as a femme grecque endormie in 1842 - awarded two Grand Médailles to Barrierne at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 . At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855 he received the Grand Médaille d'Honneur and eleven Médailles de Coopérateurs . During this time Baroperne secured the exclusive right of ownership and reproduction for the entire work of Auguste Clésinger . The foundry Susse Frères was considered to be the greatest competitor to Baroperne .

Baroperne's grave in the Pere Lachaise cemetery

Achille Collas died in 1859, whereupon Baroperne continued to run the company with 300 workers. At the world exhibition in London in 1862 he received further awards. In 1865 he was elected President of the Réunion des Fabricants and held this position until 1885. In 1874 Baroperne was accepted as a commander in the Legion of Honor . In order to compete with Japanese imports, which were in vogue at the time, Baroperne experimented between 1860 and 1890 with new techniques for applying Champlevé enamel and partitioned enamel . During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, the company manufactured 70 cannons for the French Ministry of Defense.

After his death in 1892, Baroperne was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. Until then he had received numerous awards. His company employed 600 workers until his death and had produced around 3,000 works of art and arts and crafts in bronze . His products were also known and in demand abroad. He was one of the most important and popular manufacturers of bronzes who had most of the sculptors of his time under contract, including Antoine-Louis Barye , Barye le fils , Émile-Coriolan Guillemin , François Joseph Bosio , Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux , Henri Chapu , Pierre Jean David d'Angers , Emmanuel Frémiet , François Jouffroy and Auguste Rodin .

After his death, his nephew Gustave Leblanc-Baroperne continued to run the company, who had previously been a partner. In 1913 Leblanc-Barregelne established sales branches in the United States of America , the Netherlands , the United Kingdom and Germany , although the demand for industrial small-scale plastic was already declining. In the United Kingdom the company worked with Jackson & Graham in London and Thomas Agnew & Sons in Manchester and Liverpool , in the United States with Bigelow-Kennard in Boston and Tiffany & Co. in  New York City . The company was given up in 1954.

  • Examples of work by the Société Ferdinand Baroperne et Achille Collas

  • Constant Sévin carafe

  • The river god , Antoine-Louis Barye

  • Theseus' fight against the Minotaur of Barye

  • Greyhound from Barye

  • Le centaure Nessus enlevant Déjanire by Laurent Marqueste , Viborg Cathedral

literature

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Baroperne  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e La statuaire d'édition au 19ème siècle , section Les principales maisons françaises ( Memento of July 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b c d e Isabel Hufschmidt: The small sculptures by James Pradier. Sculpture in the industrialized art business of the 19th century. ibidem Press, 2011. ISBN 3-83826-010-4 , pp. 52ff.
  3. ↑ LH / 107/30. Baroperne, Ferdinand. In: Base Léonore .
  4. ↑ Sculpteurs et Fondeurs. Baroperne, Ferdinand (1810-1892). In: Amis et Passionés de Père Lachaise
  5. ↑ Barbedienne, François . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , 6th edition, 1902-08, Volume 2, p. 368
personal data
SURNAME Baroperne, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Martin-de-Fresnay , France
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1892
Place of death Paris , France