The Great Warrior of Montauban
Artist
Emile-Antoine Bourdelle
(French, 1861-1929)
CultureFrench
Date1898
MediumBronze
Dimensions73 1/4 x 62 x 24 1/8 in. (186.1 x 157.5 x 61.3 cm)
600 lb. (272158.21 g.)
600 lb. (272158.21 g.)
Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number71.2752
On View
Not on viewLabel TextEmile Antoine Bourdelle French (1861-1929) The Great Warrior of Montauban, 1898 Bronze Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2752 Born in Montauban, in southern France, Bourdelle entered the conservative École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1884, but soon grew weary of its restrictive, academic approach to sculpture. He found more sympathetic instruction in the Paris studio of the great modernist Auguste Rodin, which he entered in 1893. Bourdelle would serve as Rodin's assistant for the next fifteen years, working as one of his principal figure carvers and quickly perfecting his own bold and vigorous sculptural style-a style dramatically displayed in the Chrysler's Great Warrior of Montauban. In 1895, Bourdelle began work on his first major independent sculptural project, a monumental bronze War Memorial commissioned by the citizens of Montauban to commemorate the city's bloody resistance during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). The passionate intensity of Bourdelle's complex, multi-figure composition (see illustration on gallery label) shocked the town fathers, who had hoped for something more staid and traditional. It took a letter of support from Rodin himself to keep the project on track, and by the time of its completion in 1902, Bourdelle's War Memorial was widely hailed as one of the nation's most vivid portrayals of war in all its terrors. While working on the Memorial, Bourdelle cast and sold individual figures from the popular composition in limited bronze editions. Produced in 1900, the Chrysler bronze was one of five casts the artist made of the heroic, sword-wielding warrior on the Memorial's right side. Another of the casts is today in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Conservation Project Bourdelle's Great Warrior of Montauban was donated to the Museum in 1971 by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. In 1976 it was mounted on the exterior of the Museum's newly constructed American wing, facing Olney Road (see illustration on gallery label). It remained there until 1983, when it was removed to prepare for the Museum's major expansion and renovation project of the late 1980s. It has been in storage ever since. During its years of display outdoors, the sculpture had suffered from prolonged exposure to moisture and atmospheric pollutants, with the result that its original patina, or surface coloration, had become dull and corroded (see illustration on gallery label). To prepare the work for exhibit in Behind the Seen, the Museum contracted the sculpture conservator Andrew Baxter to restore it to its original luster. In treating the Bourdelle, Mr. Baxter followed basically the same procedure he used in his recent conservation of another monumental bronze sculpture in the Chrysler's collection, Gaston Lachaise's Man, on view on the Museum's second floor. He washed the Bourdelle with a non-ionic detergent and water; stabilized the corrosion with a chemical cleaning agent; and rebuilt and restored the patina with layers of toned paste wax which he applied with a brush. The hardened wax was then buffed to a lustrous finish. Edited By: DS Edited Date: 08/2005 Approved By: MHM Approval Date: 10/10/2005Exhibition History"Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Large Changing Gallery, October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. Published ReferencesEric M. Zafran, "Bourdelle's Warrior Enhances Museum Exterior," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 5, no. 8 (August 1976), not paged.
