Stone Sculpture Of Saint Joseph With The Child, Signed And Dated 1858 On The Base: Louis Coeffard

Louis Andre Mazerolles de Coeffard was born in Arveyres on October 24, 1818. He was an admiring student of his teacher, Dominique Maggesi, the leading supplier of ceremonial statues for the Palais de Justice, the Quinconces, and City Hall. The 19th century was an era when figures were brought out of obscurity and great national heroes were celebrated with statues—sometimes monumental ones. By the end of the century, the focus had shifted to bronze sculptures for public squares, gardens, and promenades—notably the colossal “Horses of the Girondins.” Maggesi admired his talent and sensed that he would carry on the tradition of portraiture and monumental sculpture. The old master was born in Carrara in 1801 and died in Bordeaux in 1892, where his funerary monument at the Chartreuse Cemetery is a beautiful work of art: a Carrara marble obelisk entwined with a branch of ivy (5th series bis, no. 37). He was saddened to see his student pass away before him. This was the era when Cardinal Donnet, archbishop of Bordeaux for forty-five years, was calling for statues for churches, funerary monuments, and other works, and he recognized the talent of Coeffard de Mazerolles, who received commissions. Our sculptor was a modest man wholly devoted to his art, who remained unmarried. Rarely leaving Bordeaux, he never exhibited at the Paris salons, but, being very loyal to the Society of Friends of the Arts, he presented his works every year at the exhibition it organized. He was twice awarded a prize by the Bordeaux Academy and became a member of both it and the Philomathic Society. His works often display a certain academic style, very much in keeping with the spirit of the times; nevertheless, there is a fluidity in the poses of other pieces, along with a desire for accuracy in the clothing and gestures. Official works: The pediment of the north pavilion of the Bourse du Commerce depicting the junction of the Ocean (Neptune) and the Mediterranean (Venus Callipyge), marking the end of the canal branching off the Garonne River;The Group of the Liberal Arts on the façade of the former faculty—now the Musée d’Aquitaine; the nymph of the Audége Fountain on Place Charles Gruet; The muse Euterpe on the façade of the Grand Théâtre, which had to be restored; Statue of Abbé de l’Epée, at the former Institute for the Deaf and Mute on Rue de l’Abbé de l’Epée;