Paul Dubois
French, 1829 - 1905
French sculptor, painter and administrator. His wealthy family allowed him to study law, which he abandoned in order to enter the sculpture workshop of Armand Toussaint (1806–62). In becoming a sculptor, he was seeking to follow his great-great uncle Jean-Baptiste Pigalle; when he first exhibited at the Paris Salon (1857), he did so under the name Dubois-Pigalle. In 1858 Paul entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At his own expense, he undertook a lengthy visit to Italy (1859–62), where he lived like other students, visiting Rome, Naples and, particularly, Florence. His works began to be bought by the French state from the time of his third exhibition at the Paris Salon; among them were St John the Baptist (1861) and Narcissus (1863–5; plaster models of both, Troyes, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.) and also the Florentine Singer (1865; silvered bronze version, Paris, Mus. d’Orsay), which won the Salon’s medal of honour. The Comte de Nieuwerkerke and Princess Mathilde Bonaparte competed for the ownership of the main version of the latter. Dubois’s talent is epitomized by these three statues, which portray elegant and refined young men; their feminine equivalents, of a similar neo-Renaissance character, are Song, for the façade of the Paris Opéra, designed by Charles Garnier, and the Birth of Eve (1873; Paris, Petit. Pal.)
Dubois’s delicacy of touch was displayed even in his rare public monuments. The tomb of General Louis Juchault de Lamoricière (marble and bronze, unveiled 1879; Nantes Cathedral) recalls the tombs (1499) by Michel Colombe, in the same cathedral, of Francis II of Brittany and Marguerite de Foix, parents of Anne of Brittany (1477–1514). The bronze Virtues stationed on the tomb also reveal the influence of Michelangelo’s tomb sculptures in S Lorenzo, Florence. Two of the Virtues were exhibited at the 1876 Salon and earned Dubois his second medal of honour. Several of his equestrian statues remained in rough-hewn versions (wax models, Troyes, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.), though two were completed: the Connétable Anne de Montmorency (bronze, 1886; Chantilly, Château) and Joan of Arc (model, exh. Salon 1889; bronze version erected 1896; Reims, Parvis de la Cathédrale). Dubois’s funerary statue of Henri d’Orléans, Duc d’Aumale continued the series of recumbent figures in the royal chapel at Dreux. Towards the end of his life, Dubois attempted a large composition, the monument to French Genius, of which the only completed fragment is Alsace-Lorraine or Memory.
Dubois was also a painter, and his portraits, whether sculpted or painted, were much in demand. His numerous busts of children are mostly in private collections and known only from their Salon listings and old photographs; however, his busts of the famous, including that of the painter Paul Baudry (bronze, 1878; Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.), the composer Georges Bizet (bronze, 1886; Paris, Père Lachaise Cemetery) and the scientist Louis Pasteur (bronze, 1890; Paris, Inst. France), are often found in public collections. Dubois derived a substantial income from reduced-scale editions of his works: in bronze by the firm of Barbedienne and in biscuit by the porcelain factory of Sèvres. Among his painted portraits are those of Mme Casimir Perier (Vizille, Château) and the Argenti Family (Chios, Adamantios Korais Lib.).
From 1873–8 Dubois was the acting conservator at the Musée du Luxembourg. From 1878–1905 he succeeded Eugène Guillaume as director of the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Because of his administrative duties, he produced little full-scale, finished work. However, his detailed working methods can be studied from the contents of his studio, which were generously bequeathed to French museums by his heirs. From this, it can be seen that he studied each subject minutely, making numerous drawings and wax models, which he dressed in paper or cloth.
Anne Pingeot. "Dubois, Paul (i)." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T023808 (accessed March 8, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
