PIERRE LAFITTE & CIE, PARIS
PLATE VIII.—THE TWO MAJESTIES
(In a Private Collection, United States)
In the mournful immensity of African solitudes, the king of planets mounts towards the zenith, darting his fires upon the arid land that he consumes, while the other king of the desert, the lion, contemplates the triumphant ascension of his rival in the sky. Gérôme has rendered the scene with an eloquence all the greater because he has employed such simple means.
Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the Duc de Luynes undertook, in collaboration with the architect Dubau, to produce an example of chryselephantine sculpture, which cost him more than 500,000 francs and was placed on view at the Exposition Universelle held in the Palais de l'Industrie in 1855.
Gérôme in his turn made a like attempt, in his Bellona, in which, to remedy the cold immobility of the material, he coloured both the ivory and the marble and at the same time invoked the aid of silver, bronze, gold, and enamel. He had associated with him several experienced collaborators, such as M. Siot-Decauville, who was to cast the face of Bellona in bronze, Messrs. Moreau-Vauthier and Delacour to point the ivory, M. Gautruche to attend to the verde-antique and the electroplating. Lastly, Gallé, and M. Lalique as well, made a number of trial models for the little head of Medusa.
Among the other examples of Gérôme's sculpture, mention must be made of The Entrance of Bonaparte into Cairo (1897), Bonaparte, a bust (1897), Timour-Lang, the Lion Tamer (1898), Frederick the Great (1899), Washington (1901), The expiring Eagle of Waterloo, The Bowlers (1902), Cupid the Metallurgist, a statue in bronze, Corinth, a statue in polychrome marble and bronze (1904).
[THE ART OF GÉRÔME]
"If you wish to be happy," Gérôme used to say to his pupils, "remain students all your lives." For his own part he applied himself ceaselessly to his studies, trusting nothing to chance. He had an extraordinarily methodical and orderly mind, even in regard to the smallest details. It is related that, when he was absent on his travels, he would notify his models several months in advance, so that they would be on hand to pose for him in his studio, from the very day of his arrival.