Ouvrier debout: M.11-1972

Titles

Ouvrier debout
Translated as: Standing worker
(Standing worker)

Maker(s)

Sculptor: Dalou, Aimé-Jules

Entities

• Figure

Categories

• Sculpture

Description

Bronze figure of a standing male worker

Legal notes

Bequeathed by Mrs M.E.L. Brownlow

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1972) by Brownlow, M. E. L., Mrs

Dating

19th Century, Mid-20th Century, Early#
Circa 1889 CE - After 1902 CE

Note

A protégé of the French sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-75), Dalou was one of the great French sculptors of the nineteenth century. The present bronze is a cast of a model for one of the figures for Dalou's unexecuted Monument to the Working Man. From 1889 Dalou began making studies of workers - both modelled and in sketches - for the monument. Although the monument was never made, a model of c. 1895/6 shows that Dalou intended a huge column with 12 niches inset around the base, in which sculpture of workers were to be placed. The whole structure was to be surmounted by the figure of a pesant, rolling up his sleeves, now known as the 'Grand Paysan'. If completed, the sculpture would have been c. 32 m high. The original terracotta models for this project are now in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris.