Daytime - James PRADIER (1790-1852)

Sculpture made in white Carrara marble

France
circa 1840
height 100 cm
diameter of base 29 cm

Listed in "Catalogue raisonné, James Pradier et la sculpture française de la génération romantique", C. Lapaire, Sik Isea, 5 Continents éditions, Milan, 2010, page 441, n°538.

Biography :
Jean-Jacques Pradier, known as James Pradier (1790-1852) was a sculptor and painter from Geneva who made his career in France. Following the fashion of the time, he adopted the English name of "James". He entered the public school of drawing in 1804. In 1807 he joined his brother Charles-Simon Pradier in Paris, where he worked for François-Frédéric Lemot before being admitted to his studio at the Fine Arts school in Paris, as well as in the workshops of painters Charles Meynier and François Gérard. .

Pradier won the Rome Grand Prix of 1813 in sculpture category for his bas-relief "Neoptolemus prevents Philoctetes from piercing Ulysses with his arrows". He was appointed professor of sculpture at the School of Fine Arts in Paris in 1828, where he replaced François-Frédéric Lemot. One wanted to recognize the traits of Juliette Drouet, his mistress, in the marble group "Satyr and Bacchante" which caused a scandal at the Salon of 1834. This link ended when Juliette met Prince Demidoff, she left then for Victor Hugo, then Pradier's friend. In Paris, James Pradier had in 1831, his home rue des Beaux-Arts and his studio at rue Neuve-de-l'Abbaye.