Jean-baptiste Lully - Leon Pilet 1836-1917

Dimensions Height: approx. 31 cm Terrace: 7 X 15 cm Weight: 3,224 grams Signature Signed on the edge of the terrace. Material Bronze with medallion patina resting on a rectangular terrace.

Léon PIlet was born in the third arrondissement of Paris on February 12, 1836 in the home of Jean François Hubert PILET and Jeanne DEVILLE. He married a young florist from Saint-Quentin (Aisne), Joséphine BROUSSARD, who died in 1971 (from the rigors of famine? from the plague?) in the sixth arrondissement of Paris at the age of 36. In July 1880 he married a midwife, Émilie FOUET, for the second time, whom he divorced on May 13, 1903, before remarrying her a few months later. The booklets of the salons indicate that his master was Armand TOUSSAINT (1806-1862), who was a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in addition to a prolific career as a sculptor. All of his activities were rewarded in 1852 with the Legion of Honor. At the salons of 1882 and 1883, his works earned him the Honorable Mention. In 1889, he presented a marble statue called Coup de Vent at the Universal Exhibition. His originality and the finesse of his creation were rewarded with the Bronze Medal, while the State acquired this graceful work. In his studio at 6 Quai de Jemmapes, he sculpted numerous statuettes and busts that brought him a certain recognition. He drew his inspiration from mythology, biblical history or the history of France, literature. He did not disdain themes of everyday life either. Léon PILET sculpted a MOZART and a LULLY. In 1904, he presented a statuette called "Music". We do not know at what point in his career the two musicians were sculpted, but one thing is certain, he presented them as a pair, with great similarities. Indeed, the two musicians are dressed in a frock coat of fine workmanship but also of great sobriety, even if LULLY's simplicity is less accentuated and more refined. Both standing, Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART holds a conductor's baton between his fingers while Jean-Baptiste Lully wedges his violin under his arm, no doubt to recall the creation of his Petite Bande, his personal violin orchestra composed of children. Both hold a score. At their feet are three books topped with a laurel wreath recalling their merits. For Jean-Baptiste LULLY, the young Italian who entered the service of Louis XIV in 1653 as a violinist and dancer, and who, in 1664 and until 1871, composed the music for Molière's thirteen comedy-ballets. The first of these, La Princesse d'Élide, is the first of three collections, the last being the score of Armide, an opera that Lully presented for the first time on February 15, 1686, to a libretto by the poet Quinault, 13 months before gangrene took him away following an untimely blow from his orchestra baton to an infected toe. This statuette, full of presence and elegance, recalls a bygone century, that of the Sun King, whose court shone with all the splendors of French culture.

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