Lot 14: EMILE JEANNEST (FRENCH, 1813-1857) TWO ALLEGORICAL GROUPS OF EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION

Signed E. Jeannest fecit and inscribed Manufrd. & Pubed.by Elkington Mason & Co, 1854, one group numbered 899, depicting classical groups of seated females, each with a child at her knee Bronze, deep brown patination 34 cm (13 1/2 in) high overall (2) Jeannest was the first in a distinguished group of French sculptors who had a profound influence on British design in parian and bronze around the middle of the nineteenth century. Son of a bronze manufacturer and pupil of the painter Paul Delaroche, he arrived in England about 1845. Three years later he was employed by Herbert Minton to design work in parian and to teach at the Potteries School of Design in Stoke. His teaching was highly respected and his designs, once he tempered his overt French treatment, were very popular. Jeannest was instrumental as a link between the potteries and other French sculptors such as Pradier, Dantan and Feuchere, but soon after Carrier-Belleuse began working for Minton in 1850, he joined Elkington's bronze foundry in Birmingham and established an equally high reputation as a draugtsman and modeller for bronzes. These two fine groups are characteristic of his balanced compositions and intricate modelling. Other examples of his work for Elkington are three equestrian groups produced as the Warwick Race Plate from 1851 to 1853. Literature: Obituary, The Art Journal, 1857, p.227-8. Philip Ward-Jackson, "French Modellers in the Potteries", in The Parian Phenomenon, (ed. Paul Atterbury), 1989, p.49-50.