Auguste De Chatillon Seal Bronze Stamp "the Three Graces"

Important 19th century stamp seal in solid bronze with silver patina signed Aug. De Chatillon (Auguste De Chatillon 1808-1881) Allegorical composition depicting the three graces forming a circle around a naturalist upright decorated with Rocailles and Shells, the stamp with the coat of arms motif. Good condition, note some wear to the silvering. Rare large model measuring 14 cm high X 3.2 in diameter. Auguste de Châtillon is a French painter, sculptor and poet, member with Théophile Gautier, Gérard de Nerval and Arsène Houssaye of the “bohème du Doyenné”. He began at the Salon of 1831 and painted portraits, including those of Théophile Gautier and Victor Hugo and his family, including one of the poet with his son François-Victor and another of his daughter Léopoldine. He designed the costumes for Le Roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo in 1832 and painted the woodwork in Gérard de Nerval's salon. From 1844 to 1851, he lived in the United States in New Orleans. In Paris, in 1855, he published a collection of poems, Song and Poetry, which was twice enlarged and reissued. Gautier says of him in his preface that "he reconciles simplicity and art, and his songs can be bawled in the cabaret and sighed in the salon" Victor Hugo, in a note he addressed to the poet in 1869, wrote: "There is in you something of the easy grace of La Fontaine with an added charm of melancholy" In this collection where pieces in the romantic style and fashionable songs of yesteryear stand side by side, portraits of little people and evocations of New Orleans and Montmartre.