Private collection, UK

2023: RODIN DALOU, Eros Gallery, 1-22 December.

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.

The Truth Revealed is Dalou’s personification of France acknowledging the wrongful imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus, a French artillery officer (later promoted to lieutenant colonel after his release) who was wrongly accused of treason and forced to carry out his imprisonment on the penal colony of Cayenne know as ‘Devils Island’. Many believe that this accusation was motivated by anti-semitism within the French justice system. This dark and tragic story in France’s history is still felt today, and in 2021 a museum dedicated to the Dreyfus affair was opened by president Emmanuel Macron, recognising the injustices which has been suffered by Dreyfus, his family and the Jewish communities in France. This sculpture expresses Dalou’s support for Dreyfus and reinforces his left-wing views.