literature
BOURNET, Maître. Catalogue des Objets d’Art et d’ameublement. Tableaux Moderns (...) provenant de la collection de M. Jeanneney (...) au Château de Saint Amand en Puisaye, 1921.
SIMIER Amélie (dir.) Jean Carriès. La matière de l’étrange, catalogue de l’exposition (Paris, Petit Palais, Octobre 2007-janvier 2008). Paris: Paris musées, 2007.
SIMIER Amélie (dir.) Jean Carriès. La matière de l’étrange, catalogue de l’exposition (Paris, Petit Palais, Octobre 2007-janvier 2008). Paris: Paris musées, 2007.
Detailed Description
This stoneware by Paul Jeanneney (1861-1920), Phénix crapaud et bestiaire fantastique (1900) in a spirit of Gothic revival, is the largest animal group known by us in ceramics, cookie and stoneware. It far exceeds Rhinocéros Noir by Petersen (large model) (circa 1938) and Autruches by Le Bourgeois (1928), both in stoneware from the Sèvres Manufacture. And, apart from Frémiet and Gardet (Animaux fantastiques at Pierrefonds and Chat et Canard...), in smaller animals or groups, the ceramic corpus of the industrial editor E. Muller mainly includes architectural decorations and figures.
Stoneware is a plastic, resistant and colorfast material, the best for modelling large sculptural pieces that we only hope won't collapse on themselves before or during firing, and that won't break either during the magical but dreaded firing process: Vita per ignem ! That's what defines the passion of the ceramists of the time, of whom Carries, Chaplet, Dalpeyrat, Jeanneney and Lachenal were the main representatives... A “Vouloir-Faire” that kept European ceramics in competition from the last third of the 19th century until the Second World War, against a backdrop of artistic rivalries at Universal Exhibitions.
For example, the Musée de la Manufacture de Sèvres holds Dalou's large vase decorated with low-reliefs, l'Âge d'Or de l'Humanité (1888), while the Petit Palais holds Jean Cros' Vase (les métaux) from 1897. Paul Jeanneney's sculpture appears here as a successful tour de force, which he repeated with Gargouille tenant un lézard et crapaud in the same year, the representation of a true ceramic ronde-bosse in dimensions well in excess of a metre - and not a simple vase-turning job.
The name of this original artist, who could be seen as a worthy successor to Bernard Palissy, is linked to sculpture through two other sculptors, Jean Carriès (1855-1894), whose close friend he was until his death, and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), for whom he produced two medium-sized models in stoneware, the Buste de Jean d'Aire and a monumental Tête Balzac.
Born in Strasbourg on August 6, 1881 in a wealthy family, Paul Jeanneney passed the Ecole Centrale de Paris entrance exam[1] in his twenties, returning to Strasbourg for four years to train as a ceramist. In 1889, he moved to Paris, to an artist's studio in the Cité Fleurie at 65 boulevard Arago, where he met Jean Carriès, becoming his pupil, friend and collector. It was after the death of his mentor that his career exploded when, in 1898, he bought the château at Saint-Amand en Puisaye, the town in the middle of the ceramics region famous for its earthenware since the 14th century, set up his kiln there and declared himself as a Master Potter: he would spend the rest of his life there. Two years later, he produced his two masterpieces, ours, Phénix crapaud et bestiaire fantastique in his usual shades and glazes, and the second, which owes more to Carriès in subject, style and the wet-like modelling of the material, Gargouille tenant un lézard et crapaud - perhaps a tribute to his Master who died in 1894.
Already exceptional for its dimensions in this material, and for its rarity which is its corollary, this sculpture is also exceptional for its presence: at just three feet tall, which is far from gigantic, it impresses with its primitive power, almost reminiscent of direct modelling, and with its monumentality, which makes it occupy space with astonishing energy... It almost rises from the towers of Notre-Dame in Paris! Whether it's the right inner dimensions or the hidden grandeur of things, this monumentality, the fourth architectural dimension of sculpture, is not given to every artist. It is innate in Antiquity, found in the great Italians Masters of the past, more notable in Michelangelo than in Bernini, and in the last two centuries, it has become rare, but it is particularly strong in Barye, Bourdelle, Maillol, and in this piece by Jeanneney.
Signed and dated “Jeanneney 1900”, the group was produced in the chateau's kilns and first adorned the Porte dite des Lions, with its counterpart, as seen on an old postcard. Then, after the artist's death in 1921, it was reproduced in the small booklet of his after-death sales of May 1921 on its present oak base and described as Le Pélican, grès flammé par Jeanneney, reproduction d'après les gargouilles de Notre-Dame de Paris.
Stoneware is a plastic, resistant and colorfast material, the best for modelling large sculptural pieces that we only hope won't collapse on themselves before or during firing, and that won't break either during the magical but dreaded firing process: Vita per ignem ! That's what defines the passion of the ceramists of the time, of whom Carries, Chaplet, Dalpeyrat, Jeanneney and Lachenal were the main representatives... A “Vouloir-Faire” that kept European ceramics in competition from the last third of the 19th century until the Second World War, against a backdrop of artistic rivalries at Universal Exhibitions.
For example, the Musée de la Manufacture de Sèvres holds Dalou's large vase decorated with low-reliefs, l'Âge d'Or de l'Humanité (1888), while the Petit Palais holds Jean Cros' Vase (les métaux) from 1897. Paul Jeanneney's sculpture appears here as a successful tour de force, which he repeated with Gargouille tenant un lézard et crapaud in the same year, the representation of a true ceramic ronde-bosse in dimensions well in excess of a metre - and not a simple vase-turning job.
The name of this original artist, who could be seen as a worthy successor to Bernard Palissy, is linked to sculpture through two other sculptors, Jean Carriès (1855-1894), whose close friend he was until his death, and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), for whom he produced two medium-sized models in stoneware, the Buste de Jean d'Aire and a monumental Tête Balzac.
Born in Strasbourg on August 6, 1881 in a wealthy family, Paul Jeanneney passed the Ecole Centrale de Paris entrance exam[1] in his twenties, returning to Strasbourg for four years to train as a ceramist. In 1889, he moved to Paris, to an artist's studio in the Cité Fleurie at 65 boulevard Arago, where he met Jean Carriès, becoming his pupil, friend and collector. It was after the death of his mentor that his career exploded when, in 1898, he bought the château at Saint-Amand en Puisaye, the town in the middle of the ceramics region famous for its earthenware since the 14th century, set up his kiln there and declared himself as a Master Potter: he would spend the rest of his life there. Two years later, he produced his two masterpieces, ours, Phénix crapaud et bestiaire fantastique in his usual shades and glazes, and the second, which owes more to Carriès in subject, style and the wet-like modelling of the material, Gargouille tenant un lézard et crapaud - perhaps a tribute to his Master who died in 1894.
Already exceptional for its dimensions in this material, and for its rarity which is its corollary, this sculpture is also exceptional for its presence: at just three feet tall, which is far from gigantic, it impresses with its primitive power, almost reminiscent of direct modelling, and with its monumentality, which makes it occupy space with astonishing energy... It almost rises from the towers of Notre-Dame in Paris! Whether it's the right inner dimensions or the hidden grandeur of things, this monumentality, the fourth architectural dimension of sculpture, is not given to every artist. It is innate in Antiquity, found in the great Italians Masters of the past, more notable in Michelangelo than in Bernini, and in the last two centuries, it has become rare, but it is particularly strong in Barye, Bourdelle, Maillol, and in this piece by Jeanneney.
Signed and dated “Jeanneney 1900”, the group was produced in the chateau's kilns and first adorned the Porte dite des Lions, with its counterpart, as seen on an old postcard. Then, after the artist's death in 1921, it was reproduced in the small booklet of his after-death sales of May 1921 on its present oak base and described as Le Pélican, grès flammé par Jeanneney, reproduction d'après les gargouilles de Notre-Dame de Paris.
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