Large Plaster Statue Of Jacques Callot Who Took Part In The 1869 Competition In Nancy.

Exceptional statue of Jacques Callot, in plaster
badged, having taken part in the 1869 competition in Nancy
(Lorraine), to adorn the monument on the present-day Place
Vaudémont.
The committee for the statue of Jacques Callot, created in 1867,
organized a major national competition with a view to erecting a
statue (the project was old) to the famous Lorraine engraver,
one of the country's most illustrious children. 17 artists
responded and exhibited their plaster
sketches in the summer of 1869 in the nave of Saint-Epvre church,
then undergoing complete reconstruction. After deliberation by the jury, Eugène Laurent of Paris was chosen as the winner. Execution of the project then took several
years, delayed by the war of 1870, and the
lack of funding raised solely by public
subscription. Finally, the statue, cast in bronze by
Barbedienne, was inaugurated in 1877 (the final plaster cast,
dated 1874, is today preserved at the Lycée Cyfflé, in
Nancy -

Alfred Daubrée, linchpin of the committee, made
it his advertising banner and produced medals and
memorial statuettes.

The archives unfortunately do not preserve the list
of the 17 candidates, mainly Parisian. While we know
the names of Révillon (n°7), Bailly (n°6), Laurent
(n°5-printed), de Blézer (n°3-printed), Noël Louis (n°1-printed),
the others are unknown, with the exception of Krémer,
sculptor from Nancy (n°15). The 1869 photograph (where
only 13 statues appear) unfortunately
does not allow us to read the two-digit number
assigned to our statue. The other statues bear, from
left to right, the numbers 9-7-6-10-5-3-1-8-2-4-14 and
16. Our statue could therefore correspond to numbers 11, 12, 13, 15 or 17. It's tempting to see this as the work of
Krémer, jury member and unsuccessful candidate who did
all he could to win (his project
obtained only one vote).

The works of the unsuccessful candidates,
including our sculpture, were lost as soon as the competition ended. However,
given their highly decorative value, one
can perfectly imagine that most of the sculptors
tended to sell their works, in order to make a profit on the
time spent on creation (only the three prizewinners by the
committee received a prize).

some missing plaster has been reported, reconstituted stone and wood base.