A Lion Devouring An Antelope - G. Gardet

A lion devouring an antelope A very fine bronze lion, representing the carnivore who has just killed an antelope, by Georges Gardet (1863-1939). An old patinated copy of a dark brown with some golden undertones. On a green/grey granite base.

Georges Gardet is the son of the sculptor Joseph Gardet and the brother of the sculptor Joseph-Antoine Gardet. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the studios of Aimé Millet and Emmanuel Frémiet. He proves to be very gifted for the creation of animal subjects which will remain his favorite subject. Georges Gardet participated for the first time in the Paris Salon at the age of twenty in 1883 and achieved his first success in 1891 with his animal group "Drame dans le désert", the monumental version of which is still kept at Parc Montsouris in Paris. . Gardet's career was launched by the success of his large-scale sculptures at the Salon. He quickly received offers and orders from the State or the City of Paris, and other orders came from abroad: Mexico City (an eagle intended to surmount the dome of the Legislative Palace; seated lions framing the entrance Chapultepec Park), Winnipeg (Manitoba Legislative Building), Brussels (Lake Palace), etc.) His talent has also generated many commissions from amateurs who wish to preserve representations of their pets or decorate gardens and the parks of their homes. He participated in the Universal Exhibition of 1900 and was promoted to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honour the same year. He is also a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Society of French Artists. Gardet's animal sculptures were extremely powerful, each having an individual character of its own. Although many of his models were first sculpted in marble, they were then made in bronze by the foundries of Thiebault, Barbedienne or Siot-Deauville. Some of his works have also been published in the Biscuit de Sèvres. He died in 1939 in Paris and is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery, next to his father.