Background Bourdelle is best-known as a monumental sculptor who bridged from the classical to the impressionist. He worked in his youth with his father, a cabinet-maker, at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains in Montauban. When his wood carving ability caught the attention of the influential Pouvillon, Bourdelle was given a scholarship & packed off to the École de Beaux-Arts to study. He worked with Carpeaux, Dalou, and finally Rodin -- his lifelong friend who referred to Bourdelle as the "Pathfinder of the future".
Musée Bourdelle, Paris When the City of Paris founded the Musée Bourdelle in Bourdelle's former house & studios in the Montparnasse region, it preserved a look at an artist's life in the Paris of 1900. The Musée Bourdelle also houses Bourdelle's astonishing creative force -- almost 900 sculptures, many of them larger than life, and over 6000 paintings, drawings, prints, etc. Anatole France said Bourdelle was "the most illustrious Frenchman of his time." Paris' Museum of Modern Art has Bourdelle's La France greeting visitors at the entryway. His late daughter's estate (Le Coudray in Egréville, south of Fontainebleau) is now open to the public and has many of his large sculptures displayed at their best -- outdoors in the gardens. Contact Émile-Antoine Bourdelle's grand-daughter lives in America and is now offering a limited, numbered edition of 10 copies made from an original of his bronze sculpture, Auto-Portrait Sans Bras for sale. The foundry studied the original and reproduced the original's patina exactly. The foundry owners, classically trained in Italy, have been doing the Metropolitan Museum's castings for several decades. You can also see this statue at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris. Each meticulously copied numbered bronze is being offered at $7,550 + S&H.. . Click here to go to photos & details