Object History
Barrias’ most celebrated work, an homage to advances made in scientific exploration, first appeared in marble at the Paris Salon of 1893 by its lengthier title ‘La Nature mystérieuse et voil se découvre devant la Science’ (no. 2543) and was fittingly acquired by the faculty at l’Ecole de Médecine in Bordeaux. This first version was entirely nude apart from the veil which hung over her head and fell to her toes. Barrias presented a reduced and edited version of this subject, partly clothed like the present example, at the Salon of 1899 simply titled ‘La Nature se dèvoilant’ (no. 3186). Executed in polychrome marble and Algerian onyx it stands two meters high and was intended for the main staircase of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. It was acquired by the French state and displayed at Musée du Luxemburg from 1903 and moved to the musée d’Orsay in 1986 (inventory number RF 1409).
The female nude conveys the symbolism of nature reflecting the revelations of natural science as discovered through scientific advancements, with exposed breasts being a symbol of nature in allegorical figures from the Renaissance. Accusations of coquettish intentions, at the time and since, rather miss this point, but still and undeniably, the subject “testifies to a sense of beauty, entirely personal and expressive of dreams common to so many men, that will long provide in those who contemplate it a feeling of tenderness” (G. Mourey, ‘Ernest Barrias’, Les Arts, No. 40, April 1905., p. 32.).
The first bronze casts exhibited by Susse were shown to great critical acclaim at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. At the Liège Exhibition of 1905, the renowned bronzier Théodore Millet deemed the model a tour de force for the Susse firm, proclaiming “La Nature se dévoilant devant la Science by the late Ernest Barrias can be considered the most beautiful of the works on display; it also won a Grand Prize for MM. Susse Frères” (Exposition Universelle & Internationale de Liège 1905, Section Française, Classe 97, Rapport Par M. Th. Millet, Comité Français des Exposition à L’Étranger, Paris, 1907, p. 14).
The foundry Susse Frères cast the bronze in five different sizes (97, 73, 58, 43, and 24 cm high) and with a variety of patinas, sometimes with the inclusion of marble for the face, upper body, and feet. The use of gold, silver and precious materials adds to the sense of opulence typical of the fin-de-siècle. The complexity of the reduction process employed to make the Susse Frères editions, as well as the use of multicoloured patinas also speaks to the sense of scientific advancement embodied by Nature unveiling itself before science. As noted in the catalogue for the exhibition The Colour of Sculpture, held in 1996 at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, the sculpture itself is a symbol of technological advancement: “Breathtaking technical progress seemed to solve all the mysteries of the world, and it appeared only a matter of time before—to use Barrias’s visual language—nature revealed its last secrets. That such […] academic female figures could still be employed at the beginning of the age of electricity is characteristic for the nineteenth-century, with its usual simultaneity of heterogeneous forms of expression.” (A. Blühm, The Colour of Sculpture, 1840-1910 [Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum; Leeds: Henry Moore Institute; Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 1996], p.186).
The present bronze measures 97 cm. high and is a rare example of the largest size cast by Susse Frères and incorporating white marble for the bust. Examples of the smaller size appear more frequently on the market, but this largest size is rare. A much smaller Susse Frères reduction of ‘La Nature se dévoilant devant la Science’, measuring 58 cm. high, is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA (Accession No. 2004.166.1).
Louis-Ernest Barrias
Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841 – 1905) was one of the most celebrated and influential sculptors of the late nineteenth century. Along with contemporaries such as Batholdi (of Statue of Liberty fame), he was influential in re-inventing a new sophisticated approach to allegorical representation, evident in the romantic figure of ‘Nature unveiling itself before science’, but also in handling themes of modernity such as his ‘Allegory to Electricity’ for the Gallery of Machines at the 1889 Exposition Universelle.
Born in Paris, Barrias’ father was a painter on porcelain and his brother Felix Barrias, twenty years his senior, was a student of Léon Cogniet and won the Prix de Rome in 1844. Following his brother’s advice young Ernest initially studied painting but showed a natural affinity for sculpture and became a student of Pierre-Jules Cavelier (1814-1894) and on 7th April 1858 was accepted at the School of Fine Arts in Paris to study under François Jouffroy (1806–1882). His talent was evident at an early age, his style described as being very French, in the manner of Houdon and the sculptors portraitists of the eighteenth century. In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome and was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva in the Champs-Élysées. His works included much public statuary and he encompassed allegorical, biblical and historical subjects. His most celebrated sculpture is ‘Nature unveiling itself before science’. Another of his most recognisable compositions is the ‘Young Mozart’, shown playing the violin, which was exhibited first in bronze at the Salon of 1887 and again at the 1900 Exposition Universelle.
His talent earned him all the rewards: a medal at the Salon of 1870, first class medal in 1872, medal of honour in 1878, a first class medal that same year at the Exposition Universelle, and grand prizes at the Exposition Universelles of 1889 and 1900. In 1878 he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour, an officer in 1881, and a commander in 1900. Barrias replaced Dumont at the Institut de France in 1884 and succeeded Cavelier as professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. He was part of the committee of the Society of French Artists and was a member of the committee Musées nationaux et du Conseil supérieur des Beaux-Arts.
