LÉON JACQUES GAILLARD (XIX-XX SECOLO) The Rape of the Sabine Women.

The Rape of the Sabine Women. Bronze. Cm 46,00 x 104,00 x 34,00. Signature at the base. Overall dimensions with base: 169x49x49 cm.Léon Jacques Gaillard, born in Preignac in Gironde, was a French sculptor active between the 19th and 20th century, a pupil of Alexandre Falguière and Antonin Mercié. Some of his sculptures have been exhibited in many editions of the Salon in Paris: "La Cigale" (1896), "Yolaine" (1898), a plaster of the queen of the Franks Fredegund (1905) and "Devant l'Aréopage" (1914). The virtuosity of his masters echoes in this bronze version of the Rape of the Sabine Women, taken from the famous masterpiece in marble by Giambologna in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria, Florence. Legendary episode of the origins of Rome, in its sculptural transposition by Giambologna the Rape of the Sabine Women became an example of one of the peaks of mannerist mastery of the second half of the 16th century, a composition replicated many times in the following centuries and a true prelude to the upheaval of the Baroque in the 17th century.Literature: P. Kjellberg. "Bronzes of the 19th Century: Dictionary of Sculptors", London 1994, p. 341.