Artcurial, Paris, 19 June 2012, lot 67

Augustin Pajou's pupil, Jacques-Edme Dumont became successful during the Empire and was granted numerous official commissions. A series of busts of the Generals of the French Revolution was commissioned by Bonaparte including François Marceau, a young general who died as a hero. Dumont exhibited a plaster bust of Marceau in the 1800 Salon (no. 427), then a marble of the same model in 1801. A terracotta considered being the bozzetto of this model, similar to the prꦯesent bust, is in the Louvre (inv. no. 2988).

Two plaster casts were commissioned by Louis-Philippe for the Galeries Historiques of Versailles (inv. no. MV 526). Two full-length portraits of Marceau by Dumont are also in the Louvre (inv. no. 2707 & 2711), bozzetti for the sculpture commissioned in 1804 for the Palais du Luxembourg. The present bust,🌺 with its sketchy surface, may be one of the artist's early models.

RELATED LITERATURE

S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française au dix-huitième siècle, I, Paris, 1910 (reed. 1970), pp. 301-306; G. Hubert, Deux maquettes de Jacques-Edme Dumont, Revue des arts décoratifs, 3, 1951, pp. 181-183