Marble By Mathurin Moreau (1822-1912) “the Oyster Bed”

Carrara marble sculpture representing a woman the fisherwoman, signed mathurin MOREAU. Sculpture in very good condition, beautiful quality. Sculpture placed on a rotating marble base. On the rotating base There is a discreet and invisible restoration. Height with the base: 79 cm. Height of the sculpture, without base: 72.5 cm. Mathurin Moreau; born in Dijon on November 18, 1822 and died in Paris on February 14, 1912 on February 14, 1912, is a French sculptor, renowned for his decorative sculptures. Mathurin Moreau, who owes his first name to his paternal grandfather, a locksmith in Dijon, was born at 7, rue Monge from the marriage of the sculptor Jean Baptiste Louis Josephe Moreau and Anne Marianne Richer, originally from Besançon where his father, Mathieu Richer, was also a sculptor1. His brothers Hippolyte and Auguste were also sculptors. He was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1841 in the studios of Jules Ramet and Auguste Dumont. He won the second prize of Rome in 1842 with Diodème enlevant le Palladium. He debuted at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1848 and made a name for himself there with the statue L'Élégie. He won a second-class medal at the 1855 Universal Exhibition in Paris, then a first-class medal in 1878. In 1897, he was awarded a medal of honor at the Salon, where he became a member of the jury during the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris. There, he exhibited a white marble bust representing Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar (after his 1875 Carrara marble and bronze bust, entitled: Ishmael, Candor). Between 1849 and 1879, Mathurin Moreau collaborated with the Val art foundry and, as a shareholder, became one of its directors, but, observes Pierre Kjellberg, "the reign of Napoleon III was also that of fireplace fittings, which until then were very rare, multiplied and often appeared in the catalogues of bronze publishers": Mathurin Moreau's Liseuse was part of this craze. The artist also provided models to the Compagnie des bronzes de Bruxelles and exhibited at the Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à l’industrie in the 1880s. In 1880, the artist received a bonus in the competition for the erection of an allegorical monument of La Défense de Paris at the Courbevoie roundabout (a roundabout at the origin of the La Défense district, but it was Louis Ernest Barrias who was awarded the commission). From 1879 until his death, Mathurin Moreau was elected mayor of the 19th arrondissement of Paris — created in 1860 after annexation of the communes of Belleville and La Villette — where Rue Priestley took the name Avenue Mathurin Moreau by virtue of the decree of July 16, 1912. He was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1865 and promoted to Officer of the same order in 1885. He died on July 14, 1885. February 1912 in his home at 15, passage Montenegro in Paris he was buried in the Lilas cemetery.