Bronze Male Figure The Dockworker Of Antwerp After Meunier

The Dockworker of Antwerp by Meunier, better known as Le debardeur du port d'Anverse, by the famous Belgian sculptor Costantin Emile Meunier (1831-1905). Dockworkers are the men who load and unload ships, those we now more commonly refer to as dockers. While avoiding miserabilism, Meunier's Antwerp Dockworker has become an archetypal representation of the alienation of individuals through work. An early wax version was exhibited as early as 1885 in Brussels at the Salon des XX. When the large plaster cast was presented in Paris at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-arts in 1889, critics were enthusiastic: “... never before has such tragic and moving expression, such energy, such oppression, such suffering and such resignation been given to a figure with such intensity.”
As early as 1890, the French state purchased this bronze specimen. In Belgium, a life-size dockworker was erected in the main square of Antwerp, becoming a symbol of the city. After 1893, bronze reductions of various sizes were made, as well as a bust, naturally entitled Antwerp.

The sculpture we offer is a dark patina earthenware casting in good condition. The signature on the back is imprecise. Of Belgian or French origin, it dates back to the early decades of the 1900s.