BARRIAS, Louis-Ernest (1841 Paris - 1905 ibid.)

"Les premières Funérailles"

Patinated bronze. inscribed "E. Barrias", with foundry mark "Thiébaut Frères Paris Fondeurs". H 50.5 cm. 18.35 kg.

Dramatic group consisting of three people. A man and a woman carry the limp body of a youth. The group is known as a depiction of Adam and Eve burying the body of Abel. The artist was awarded a medal of honor and the Cross of the Legion of Honor for "The First Burial" at the Paris Salon of 1878. Patina rubbed, possibly residue from the unchased mould on the youth's legs.

Louis-Ernest Barrias: French sculptor, pupil of Léon Cogniet, from 1854 initially as an apprentice in the workshop of Pierre-Jules Cavelier, from 1857 in the workshop of François Jouffroy, elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1884 and appointed as a lecturer at the École de Beaux-Arts, in 1894 he became head of the master sculpture studio at the Académie des Beaux-Arts and in 1897 vice-president of the Institut de France.
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Provenance : Museum estate of Peter Kaus.