CHINARD, Joseph

Like the Emperor, the members of the imperial family liked sculpted effigies and under the Empire there were few Salons where the bust or statue of one of them was not on show. Solidly implanted in France, the tradition of the portrait was brilliantly represented by aging sculptors such as Houdon, Chinard and Delaistre, who were soon joined by a newcomer, Bosio.

Chinard’s bust presents a portrait of Josephine which is solemn - she is wearing court dress - and moving, because it is a very good likeness, not made to look younger as was demanded by neoclassical idealization.

A past master in the art of female portraiture, Chinard was distinguished by sensitive personal talent and an especially decorative elegance exhibited in the details of dresses, jewels, coiffures and in the skilful transition from bust to plinth. In the bust of Jeanne de l’Orme de l’Isle it is ensured by the symmetrical and almost abstract fall of the dress held under the breast by an elaborately wrought marble plaque imitating goldwork.

In his days Chinard was the most distinguished sculptor working outside the capital, and Lyon provided him with many of his sitters, including Madame R�camier. Although Chinard produced some attractive, Clodion-style terracottas, and also more patently neoclassical, sternly republican sculpture, he remains most remarkable for his portrait busts. At their finest these rival Houdon’s in realistic vitality, and in addition have a poetic refinement which is Chinard’s own. He could respond to a wide range of character, but he was at his best with female sitters, where, without flattery, he cold suggest a certain mystery, even reserve, beneath a a charming exterior. His Madame R�camier is certainly the masterpiece of those.

This small statuette is the kind of small sculpture that was mass-produced for supporters of the Revolution. It shows an immobile classical figure with Phrygian cap holding two tablets inscribed “The Rights of Man.”