Francesco Messina Art

Antique Bronze Dog Sculpture Chihuahua "La Petite Belle Lydie" Charles Valton (French, 1851-1918) Circa 15 1/2 x 10 1/4 x 7 Lydie is a Chihuahua making her a very rare image from ...

This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “Bruce Sargeant is a mythic figure in the modern art movement. He embodies a world that is in many ways lost to us; he...

Antique Horse Bronze Portrait of a Trotting Stallion Isidore Jules Bonheur (France, 1827-1901) Cast bronze mounted on a rectangular plinth with dark brown patina, Signed: I. BONHEUR 17 x 11 3/4 A brilliant exploration of a stallion in full trot. The patina is a deep, warm walnut brown with honey-colored tones. Isidore Bonheur was best known and the most distinguished of the 19th century French animalier sculptors. Isidore, the younger brother of Rosa Bonheur and older brother of Auguste, began his studies of painting initially with his father, who was friends with Francisco Goya. By 1848 he debuted at the Paris Salon having discontinued animal and landscape painting to concentrate on creating sculptures and in 1849, Bonheur enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He won medals at the Paris Salon in 1859 and did so again in 1865 and in 1869. After entering the Exposition Universelle 1855, he won the Gold Medal in 1889. In the 1870s exhibited in the London at the Royal Academy of Arts where he earned great prestige and won the coveted Medaille d’Or. After winning numerous other medals and prizes, Bonheur was awarded the Legion d' Honneur in 1895 and he was Knighted in Portugal, Spain and France. Bonheur continued exhibiting at the Paris Salon until 1899. Many of his bronzes were fabricated at the foundry owned by Hippolyte Peyrol, Bonheur's brother-in-law by marriage to Isidore’s youngest sister Juliette Bonheur. The Peyrol casts for both Rosa and Isidore are exceptionally well executed which suggests a strong working relationship between the founder and sculptor. There is little doubt that Isidore Bonheur was an acute observer of nature; his animals were not anthropomorphized but modelled to catch movement or posture characteristics of the particular species he was sculpting. He achieved this most successfully with his sculptures of horses which are usually depicted as relaxed rather than spirited. These figures are among his most renowned works and his equestrian models became very popular, particularly among the British aristocracy. An acute observer of nature, his sculptures reflect his commitment to the Realist school - with precise detailing of the movements of animals in their natural habitats. Ultimately, His naturalistic studies of animals are now some of the most highly sought after works by any of the animalier. He was possibly inspired by his many visits to the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show...

Life size child on life size tortoise. Combination of young child's imagination and reality.

Antique Bronze Portrait of a Draft Horse Isidore Jules Bonheur (France, 1827-1901) Circa 1840s Cast bronze mounted on a rectangular plinth atop a marble s...

A fine cast patinated bronze bust of a woman with her hair tied back by American artist Andrew Coppola (1941-1992). Coppola was an active artist in Connecticut, known for his figura...

This artwork "Chevre Allongee (Reclining Goat)" c. 1860, is bronze sculpture after renown French artist Antoine Louis Barye, 1796-1875. Signature is impressed in the bronze. The subject size is 4.25 x 7 x 3.35 inches, including marble base is 5.25 x 4 x 7.75 inches. It is in excellent condition. About the artist: Antoine-Louis Barye lived his entire life in Paris and may never have left France. He was born in 1795 (a date revised in the 1990s from 1796 as a result of Martin Sonnabend's recalculation of the Revolutionary calendar). He is reported to have had minimal formal schooling even in reading, and to have acquired his extensive liberal-arts education on his own. His initial professional training was in metalwork: first with his father, a goldsmith from Lyons, then with a metal engraver in military equipment, and finally with Martin-Guillaume Biennais (active 1800-1832), then master goldsmith to Napoleon. After serving in the army from 1812 to 1814, Barye trained in the fine arts with sculptor François-Joseph Bosio (1768-1845) and painter Baron Gros (1771-1835). He then studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from 1818 to 1823. His miniature medallion, Milo of Crotona Devoured by a Lion, won an honorable mention in metal engraving in 1819, but he failed to win the Prix de Rome. He worked as a craftsman for the goldsmith Jacques-Henri Fauconnier (1779-1839) from 1823 to 1831 and made his Salon debut in 1827 with a selection of busts. Barye made his critical and public mark as a sculptor four years later, in the Salon of 1831, with groups representing predatory violence in the wild. His first government commission came soon after, precisely for such a subject. The Minister of the Interior purchased Barye's monumental plaster Lion (since called Lion Crushing a Serpent), shown in 1833, and had it cast in bronze by Honoré Gonon and shown in 1836, before placing it in the public Tuileries Gardens (now Musée du Louvre, Paris). In 1834 Barye was chosen for a project that was never executed, the colossal eagle as the crowning element of the triumphal arch at the Etoile. Around 1836 the government commissioned him to execute the emblematic animal decoration on the July Column at the place de la Bastille, inaugurated in 1840. He produced a monumental effigy of Saint Clotilde for the Church of the Madeleine, Paris, in the early 1840s. In 1846 the government commissioned a pendant Seated Lion for the Tuileries Lion Crushing a Serpent (1847, bronze, Portal, Pavillon de Flore, Palais du Louvre, Paris). During these same years the royal family began buying and commissioning small-scale works from Barye for their private collections. Around 1834, the duc d'Orléans commissioned a highly publicized surtout de table representing hunts of different regions and historical periods, possibly one of several tabletop projects that he ordered from Barye. The duc's sister Marie d'Orléans allegedly commissioned a lost-wax bronze of Barye's Charles VI Surprised in the Forest of Le Mans (location unknown; later serial variants), a model first shown in the Salon of 1833; his brother, the duc de Montpensier, apparently commissioned a pair of figurative...

The male figure lies atop a cresting wavelike column, seemingly elevated by the experience. One hand is nearly touching his heart while the other hand is held open in a gesture of re...

"Goldfish III" is a captivating sculpture crafted by the esteemed artist Andrzej Szymczyk. This original wildlife tabletop sculpture offers a unique interpretation of the iconic gold...

A limited edition bronze on a black marble base. From the limited edition of 8. Signed 1/8 Paula Blackman has been a bronze sculptor for 30 years working in Cleveland Ohio. Ms. Blac...

Has been in artist's private collection. Maquette hunting dog with training dummy.

ALFRED STEVENS (1817-1875) Judith Bronze 22 cm., 8 ¾ in. high Provenance: Handley-Read Collection; Fine Art Society, London, 1979; Collection of Peter Rose and Albert Gallichan. ...