Léon-Joseph Chavalliaud (; 29 January 1858 – 5 February 1919) was a French sculptor. He created several notable works in France and in England, where he lived for 15 years.
Early life
Chavalliaud (sometimes spelt Chavaillaud) was born in
Reims
Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne.
Founded by ...
Yvelines
Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207. He married Juliana Marie Rousseau.
He was an apprentice modeller in the workshop of a Mr Bulteau in Rheims, in Buirette St., very close to his place of birth. Later he entered the
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Science ...
with a grant from the city council. There, he was a pupil of
Alexandre Falguière
Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière (also given as Jean-Joseph-Alexandre Falguière, or in short Alexandre Falguière) (7 September 183120 April 1900) was a French sculptor and painter.
Biography
Falguière was born in Toulouse. A pupil of the ...
,
François Jouffroy
François Jouffroy (1 February 1806 – 25 June 1882) was a French sculptor.
Biography
Jouffroy was born in Dijon, France, the son of a baker, and attended the local drawing school before being admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 18 ...
and Louis-August Roubaud.
Works
In 1880, after working on the
caryatids
A caryatid ( or or ; grc, Καρυᾶτις, pl. ) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term ''karyatides'' literally means "ma ...
on the façade of the town hall patio in Rheims, he won the Prix de Roma with a sculpture called ''Mère Spartiate'' (Spartan Mother). The caryatids were partly destroyed in a fire in 1917. The remains of the statues now decorate the front of the Georget Hotel in Rheims.
In 1890, together with sculptor Deperthes and his son, Chavalliaud created a monument commemorating the Brittany-Anjou Federation of 1790, which was installed near Morbihan, Pontivy, in Brittany. This sculpture was destroyed with dynamite by Breton separatists in 1938.
In the 1890s, he received a commission in England and remained in Britain for fifteen years, living in
Brixton
Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. During this time, he occasionally worked for (or with)
Farmer & Brindley
Farmer & Brindley was a firm of architectural sculptors and ornamentalists based in London, founded by William Farmer (1825–1879) and William Brindley (1832–1919)
The firm, located on Westminster Bridge Road in Lambeth, south London, flour ...
, an architectural sculpture company. He also exhibited at the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...
Summer Exhibition. and the
Walker Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group.
History of the Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...
in Liverpool.
Amongst the works he completed were eight statues of famous naturalists and explorers. Commissioned in 1896, they stand outside at the eight angles of the Palm House in
Sefton Park
Sefton Park is a public park in south Liverpool, England. The park is in a district of the same name, located roughly within the historic bounds of the large area of Toxteth Park. Neighbouring districts include modern-day Toxteth, Aigburth, ...
,
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
. The marble statues are of the naturalists
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
,
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
André le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre (; 12 March 1613 – 15 September 1700), originally rendered as André Le Nostre, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France. He was the landscape architect who designed the gar ...
(a landscape gardener). The bronze statues are of the explorers and navigators
Henry the Navigator
''Dom'' Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator ( pt, Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador), was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15t ...
,
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on ...
,
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
, and Captain
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
.
He made a memorial in white marble to actress Sarah Siddons, called ''
Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse
''Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse'', or ''Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse'', is a 1783–1784 painting by English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. The 1784 version is in the Huntington Library art museum, while a 1789 reproduction from Reynolds's s ...
'', which stands on
Paddington Green, London
Paddington Green is a green space and conservation area in the City of Westminster located off Edgware Road and adjacent to the Westway. It is the oldest part of Paddington and became a separate conservation area in 1988, having previously for ...
near the churchyard of St Mary's Church where she is buried. A statue of
Cardinal Newman
John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardi ...
by Chavalliaud is installed at
Brompton Oratory
Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or as named in its Grade II* archite ...
in London.
In the salon of the French Artists' Society in 1897, he presented a statuette of
Dom Perignon Dom or DOM may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Dom (given name), including fictional characters
* Dom (surname)
* Dom La Nena (born 1989), stage name of Brazilian-born cellist, singer and songwriter Dominique Pinto
* Dom people, an ethn ...
with an inscription which reads "Dom Perignon, the inventor of sparkling Champagne wines". It was sold in Rheims in 1989 for £1,097.
In his birth city, he continued to produce bust portraits and developed a solid reputation. Among others, he created a bust of Dr. Jean-Baptiste Langlet, the mayor of Rheims at the time, which is kept in the town hall. For that sculpture in plaster in 1915, Chavalliaud received 800 francs.
Works exhibited at
The Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
Summer Exhibition
* 1893. ''Mon Pere''; bust, bronze, also exhibited at The Second Exhibition of The
International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers
The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers was a union of professional artists that existed from 1898 to 1925, "To promote the study, practice, and knowledge of sculpture, painting, etching, lithographing, engraving, and kindred ...
(London), 1899
* 1894. ''The Shrimper''; statue in marble (a boy holding a shrimp net).
* 1894. '' Madame Veuve Pommery''; portrait bust in marble.
* 1895. ''A. Hubinet, Esq.''; bust, bronze.
* 1896. ''A. Paroissien, Esq.''; bust.
* 1904. ''Portrait''; bust, bronze. (may be duplicated in the list below)
Other works
* ''Tobias Taking the Fish from the Water'', kept in the Rheims Museum of Fine Arts. 1890
* ''St. Ambrosia'', bronze bust, kept in the Rheims Museum of Fine Arts.
* A bronze bust of
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
* A bronze relief of James Robert Creighton, twice Mayor of Carlisle, and surmounting statue of St George on the Grade II listed Creighton Memorial.
* A bronze bust of Rev. James Healy. 1895
* The effigy on the tomb of the
Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster
Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, (13 October 1825 – 22 December 1899), styled Viscount Belgrave between 1831 and 1845, Earl Grosvenor between 1845 and 1869, and known as The Marquess of Westminster between 1869 and 1874, was an ...
in
St Mary's Church, Eccleston
St Mary's Church is in the village of Eccleston, Cheshire, England, on the estate of the Duke of Westminster south of Chester. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It ...
,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
. Bishop of Oxford 1904, founder of the
Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office
Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office (a.k.a. "Amicable Society") is considered the first life insurance company in the world.Anzovin, p. 121 ''The first life insurance company known of record was founded in 1706 by the Bishop of Oxfo ...
in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
* A bust of French merchant Henry Vasnier, kept in the Rheims Museum of Fine Arts
* A memorial bronze bust to Bartèlèmy Paupy, a French industrialist. 1892, In the Cimetière de l'Est,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. Signed "from a photograph".
* A memorial plaque for Abbé Declaire in the Cimetière du nord, Reims In French (two thirds down text on right)