It is an exceptional piece that will soon enter the collections of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes. He has just acquired an equestrian statue of Louis XIV, made by Antoine Coysevox. It is a miniature of the one that stood in Parliament Square until the French Revolution, when it was melted down in 1793.
A statue which was not originally intended for Rennes, but for Nantes, but which took advantage of the fire which devastated the city center of Rennes in 1720. During the reconstruction, the statue, of approximately four meters high, find the way to the square. Installed in 1926, it will eventually be melted down to make cannons. “We are not going to melt everything right away”says Guillaume Kazerouni, head of the ancient art collections at the Museum of Fine Arts. “There is only the king who goes to the cast iron, the statue of the horse remains in the square. But unfortunately, following complaints from revolutionaries who said that the horse seemed to be waiting for the next one, a few months afterwards, it in turn goes to the cast iron.”
The Breton group Novac as patron
In the end, only two bas-reliefs remain, stored in the museum from the beginning of the 19th century. But a few years ago, the trace of a miniature version of this statue, signed by the same sculptor, was discovered in a private collection in the United Kingdom. Its price: nearly 2.4 million euros. The Museum of Fine Arts wishes to acquire it and is looking for a patron. Especially since the statue, recognized “work of major heritage interest“, allows a tax exemption of 90%. The Norac group responds present. “The work seemed to us to be symbolically important for Rennes and we were happy to be able to participate in it.“, testifies Bruno Caron, its boss and founder. “It’s all about history: the statue was installed in the Place du Parlement, the great fire in Rennes in 1720, the fact that the Museum of Fine Arts already has two bas-reliefs. In fact, there were a whole bunch convergent reasons.”
– Pierre Antoine Lefort
The 94 cm high statuette rests on a 120 cm pedestal which dates from the 19th century. It is exhibited until September at the Louvre Museum in Paris, then will take the road to the Museum of Fine Arts in Rennes, whereù it will be visible on the occasion of the European Heritage Days, on 17 and 18 September.