‘Vases aux chauves-souris’ by Jean-jacques Feuchère

Chased and gilt bronze, Egyptian porphyry.
France.
1834-1852.
h. 35 cm (13,78) in.

The first occasion on which Feuchère exhibited his famous Satan was at the Salon of 1834, where it was displayed alongside “the pair of vases that go with it”. This entire grouping, of pure Romanticism, was drawing directly upon literary sources such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, and Dante’s Inferno and embraced the Romantic liking for accursed figures. Feuchère’s Satan figure itself, inspired by Dürer’s Melancholia, adopts the pose of the Romantic poet — “Le coude au genou, le menton dans la main ” — a pose later echoed by Carpeaux and Rodin. Along with other figures of the time, such as Jean-Jacques Flatters’s Milton’s Rebellious Angel of 1827 and Marochetti’s 1831 Rebellious Angel, the work firmly established themes of melancholy and evil as central to Romantic art.

The present pair of decorative vases, the vases aux chauves-souris (bat vases), with its shiny gilding and porphyry base, differs from the dark, patinated version exhibited at the Louvre alongside the Satan. Though authoritative, the Louvre ensemble may not be the one exhibited in 1834. With its winged devilish figures, the snake swirling around the pieduccio of the vase, it is nevertheless a fantastic testament for the original taste of the second third of the 19th century.

Although not as famous as his contemporaries Barye or Carpeaux, Jean-Jacques Feuchère was a quintessential Romantic personality of the time. The son of the chaser Jacques-François Feuchère, he was largely self-trained, supporting himself in his youth by working for goldsmiths and finishing bronzes. His extensive historical study manifested in his prolific output across many techniques — metalwork, painting, drawing, and lithography — and in his varied designs for clocks, candelabra, and other decorative objects, often inspired by Renaissance artists. This “exasperating universality” (Baudelaire) led him to execute major public works, including the relief Crossing of the Pont d’Arcole for the Arc de Triomphe in 1833 and 1834 and statues for the fountain, Place de la Concorde. Feuchère maintained a large circle of artistic friends, including Barye and Daumier, and was protected by influential patrons such as the Duke of Orléans and Prince Demidoff. His eclectic taste extended to his role as a collector. Feuchère died poor while possessing an enormous and varied art collection. The Satan ensemble, with its accompanying decorative vases, remains perhaps his most complex and interesting work, epitomising the literary and aesthetic interests of Romantic sculptors in the 1830s.

See Daniel Alcouffe and al., Un âge d’or des arts décoratifs. 1814-1848, Paris, 1991 and Peter Fusco in The Romantics to Rodin. French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections, 1980.