Barrias “Mozart”

An exquisite early 20th Century gilt bronze study of the famous composer ‘Mozart’ tuning his violin, dressed in period attire. The bronze surface with excellent hand finished detail and fabulous colour, signed Barrias, inscribed F Barbedienne Fondeur.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Height:                                      28 cm

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Condition:                              Excellent Condition

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Circa:                                        1900

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Materials:                                 Gilt Bronze

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SKU:                                            7549

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ABOUT

Barrias Mozart – Louis Ernest Barrias (French, 1841 ~ 1905) He was born in Paris into a family of artists. His father was a porcelain-painter, and his older brother Félix-Joseph Barrias a well-known painter. Louis Barrias also started out as a painter, studying under Léon Cogniet, but later took up sculpture with Pierre-Jules Cavelier as teacher. In 1858 he was admitted to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where his teacher was François Jouffroy. In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome. Barrias was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva in the Champs-Élysées.

His work was mostly in marble, in a Romantic realist style indebted to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. In 1878 he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour, an officer in 1881, and a commander in 1900. Barrias replaced Dumont at the Institut de France in 1884 then succeeded Cavelier as professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1900-03 he served on the Council for the National Museums. Among his students were Josep Clarà, Charles Despiau, Henri Bouchard, and Victor Segoffin. Louis Barrias was very influenced by the Art Nouveau style, which was prominent in art during the fin-de-sidle in France. The voluptuous women figures used in many of his sculptures are a product of this time and style. Nature and the erotic was, also, used often in this type style of art, which is seen in many of Barrias’s works including, “Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science.” This piece was made in 1899, when this style was popular.

Barrias Mozart – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( German, born 27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.  He was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era.

Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologised.

He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classicalcomposers, and his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music. Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that “posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years”.