Large Busts Of "gossec" And "monsigny" Signed "detombay" 19th Century

An important pair of patinated terracotta busts representing François-Joseph Gossec and Pierre Alexandre Monsigny, signed Detombay, resting on their 19th-century pink granite half-columns. François-Joseph Gossec is depicted wearing a hammered wig and a rodingote with a lace collar. He rests on a stone pedestal surmounted by his name in capital letters. Pierre Alexandre Monsigny is depicted wearing a ponytail and a jacket revealing a shirt and a lace collar. He rests on a stone pedestal surmounted by his name in capital letters. Our busts are signed M. Detombay 1839 for Monsigny and Alexandre, and Detombay 1839 for Gossec, which explains that Alphonse Detombay reused the models of his father, Joseph Alexandre Detombay, and his grandfather, Mathieu Detombay, from 1839 to the period when they worked together in the family workshop. Our pair of busts is sold with their pair of pink granite half-columns terminating in a molded base of white Carrara marble (some old restorations to the bases).* François-Joseph Gossé 1734 - 1829, known as Gossec, was born in Vergnies, a French village nestled within the County of Hainaut, then a domain of the Austrian crown. Trained in Walcourt before becoming a chorister at Antwerp Cathedral, where he completed his musical studies, then in Brussels and Liège, Gossec settled in Paris in 1751. Between 1762 and 1770, he directed, as music master, the theater of the Prince of Condé in Chantilly. He then entered the service of another prince of the blood, the Prince of Conti, as superintendent of music. He founded the Concert des Amateurs in 1769, which he directed until 1773. Between 1773 and 1777, he was director of the Concert Spirituel. In 1780, he became assistant director of the Opéra and then, after Antoine Dauvergne's resignation at Easter 1782, director general. He died in Passy in 1829, during the Second Restoration, after a sixty-five-year career that ended with his last Te Deum in 1817. Gossec is buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery, where he rests near the tomb of his friend Grétry.** Pierre Alexandre Monsigny (1729–1817) was a French composer who, through his witty, fresh, and sometimes charmingly naive music, managed to structure what had been merely a compromise between comedy and opera. He then emerged as the principal precursor, along with André Grétry and François-André Philidor, of a new genre: opéra-comique. He thus paved the way for Boieldieu, Auber, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet… and all those who, through their talent as composers, succeeded in successfully illustrating this quintessentially French genre. A member of the Academy of Fine Arts (1813), his name and bust appear on the façade of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. ***François Bernard Marie Alphonse de Tombay (or Detombay) 1843-1918, son and grandson of Liège sculptors, learned the trade in his father's workshop. A student of Prosper Drion at the Liège Academy of Fine Arts, he received a Lambert Darchis Foundation grant in 1873 and resided in Rome from 1874 to 1878. Upon his return to Belgium, he settled in Brussels, where he died in 1918. Dimensions: - Bust of Gossec: Height 77.5 cm, Width 61.5 cm, Depth 29.5 cm - Bust of Montigny: Height 82.5 cm, Width 63.5 cm, Depth 31.5 cm - Columns: Height 110.5 cm, Width 36.5 cm, Depth 36.5 cm, Diameter 29.5 cm