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Title:
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Henry Gueneau de Mussy
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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Henry Gueneau de Mussy (1814-1892) was a doctor,
and the cousin of a yet more famous French doctor, Noël Gueneau de Mussy, who
was also a member of the French Académie de Médecine. He was the author of a
number of learned studies, and was the loyal attendant of the Orléans family
during their exile in England. The painter, C.E. Hallé, records in his
memoirs that Gueneau de Mussy was among a group of friends, which also
included the painter Victor Mottez, and the singers Mario and Garcia, who
assisted in the production of the plaster statue of Richard Coeur de Lion,
prior to its exhibition outside the Crystal Palace in 1851 (C.E. Hallé, Notes
from a Painter's Life, London, 1909, pp.5-6) We know also that he was in
attendance at Claremont following the death of Victoire Duchesse de Nemours
in 1857, when Marochetti was called in to produce a posthumous bust of her
(see entry on her bust). Marochetti's marble bust of the doctor was exhibited at
the Royal Academy in 1866. A reviewer for the Evening Mail (25 May
1866) singled it out for particular praise: "In the sculptured
portraiture of the exhibition the first place is justly due to Baron
Marochetti's bust of Dr Gueneau de Mussy (871), an admirable likeness of a
most spirited and vigorous head, excellently modelled". Although it was
the marble that was exhibited, the reviewer does not remark on one
interesting aspect of it, which is the impressionistic treatment of the hair
and the probably deliberately unfinished edges to the truncation, which are
unusual at this period. Such liberties were perhaps more permissable when the
sitter was a close friend of the artist. The bust was presented to the
Académie de Médecine by the subject's widow.
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Material(s): |
Marble
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
Carved |
Genre: |
Portrait Bust
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Location: |
Paris, Academy of Medicine, , ,
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1866 |
Height: |
0.78 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
5867 |
Acc. No.: |
5867 |
Col. No.: |
5867 |
Number of views: |
2622 |
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