Faun Playing The Aulos, Bronze By Jean Bulio

Bronze sculpture with a brown patina by Jean Bulio (1827–1911) depicting a young faun playing the aulos.
The faun is depicted in motion, balancing on one leg, the other stretched forward. He is nude, except for a drapery tied around his hips. He holds a double aulos with both hands, its two pipes raised to his mouth.
The iconography refers to the Bacchic repertoire of antiquity. The absence of horns, hooves, and goat-like limbs leads us to identify the figure more precisely as a faun or young satyr, rather than as a representation of Pan. The instrument is not a syrinx, commonly known as a “Pan flute,” but a double aulos.
The faun rests on a small circular bronze terrace mounted on a polygonal pedestal of veined yellow marble in very good condition.
Jean Bulio, born in Fabrègues in 1827 and died in Montpellier in 1911, was a French sculptor. A student of Armand Toussaint, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1851 and began exhibiting at the Salon in 1859. He became a member of the Société des Artistes Français in 1883.
Works by Jean Bulio are held in French public collections, notably at the Maison de Victor Hugo, which owns a bronze bust of Victor Hugo signed by Bulio.