Private collection, UK

2023: RODIN DALOU, Eros Gallery, 1-22 December.
1875: The Royal Academy, another version, terra-cotta (1369).

Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: a Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904, vol. 1 (London: Henry Graves & Co. Ltd and George Bell and Sons, 1905-1906), p. 234, another cast.

Aimé-Jules Dalou (1838-1902) was one of only a handful of leading late-nineteenth century French Sculptors, whose reputation was perhaps second only to his contemporaries, Henri Chapu (1833-1891) and Marius Jean Antonin Mercié (1845-1916). Dalou was hugely influential and was a founding member of the Société des Artistes Français and later a founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He was officially rewarded with the highest rank of the Légion d'Honneur two years before his death, with the inauguration of the Triumph of Republic, in 1899.

He started his artistic training in 1852 at the Petite Ecole after being encouraged to do so by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, where he studied drawing and modelling. Carpeaux continued to support Dalou throughout his career and influenced his sculpture greatly. Dalou began employment in the field of decorative sculpture working for two companies in Paris, Lefèvre and Favière goldsmiths. During this time he contributed towards the architectural features of Hôtel de la Païva, the then home of the infamous French courtesan Esther Lachmann known as La Païva.

Dalou's unique approach lay in his broad range of subject, painterly and sculptural source material, though which he absorbed an impressive spectrum of inspiration. The work of an eighteenth-century sculptor, Louis-François Roubiliac, played a significant role in Dalou's artistic development, whose sculptures he studied whilst in London. Dalou's work includes friezes, maquettes, reliefs, and individual bronze figures. He is known for Baroque-inspired allegorical group compositions, as much as for his depictions of the French rural labouring classes. Dalou encouraged students of art to free themselves from the constrainsts of established traditions, with his style and teachings thought to have awakened a new generation of young British sculptors whose work was later aligned to the New Sculpture movement.

Tensions in Paris between the French government and the working classes reached a climax in 1871 resulting in the Paris Commune. Dalou was vehemently supportive of the uprising, adopting the role of curator of the Louvre during this time, but the success of the commune was short lived and Dalou fled to England and lived in exile for eight years. His career continued to flourish whilst he was in England as both a teacher and an accomplished monument maker. Queen Victoria commissioned a similar piece in 1877 for her private chapel in Windsor Castle, the sculpture to commemorate her five grandchildren. Dalou creates a feeling of tenderness within the final piece, showing the children embraced by an angelic figure.