Orlando Furioso
by DUSEIGNEUR, Jehan, Bronze, 130 x 140 x 90 cm
Although Romanticism made its appearance in painting from 1820 onwards, there was a gap of ten years before it was expressed in sculpture at the Salon of 1831 by Duseigneur’s Orlando Furioso, with its bulging muscles and twisted limbs, and the Tiger and Crocodile by Barye. These works were soon followed by Etex’s Cain, executed in Rome, as a bravado gesture because he did not win the Grand Prix, and by the creations of Pr�ault.
It was not until the Second Empire that Romantic sculptors won official recognition in France. The state did not commission the casting of Orlando Furioso until 1867.