The sale of a rare terracotta sculpture by 17th-century French artist Francois Anguier has been suspended as the Louvre now wishes to acquire it. The Parisian museum beat a sculpture by Anguier which sold for €2.6 million (including fees) on June 18 during a sale organized by the Osenat house in Versailles, setting an auction record for the artist. .
The Louvre can anticipate auctions under French heritage laws. “This means that a museum does not intervene during the sale, but when the auction is over, it “preempts”, that is to say, it buys the piece at the final price”, explains a door. -word of the Louvre.
“François Anguier is one of the most famous sculptors who worked under the regency of Anne of Austria at the start of the reign of Louis XIV. Like Jacques Sarrazin, he is considered the best sculptor of funerary monuments in Paris in the years 1640-1660”, indicates the catalog of the auction, adding that the work comes “from a French private collection by descent”.
The terracotta model, a preparatory piece for the funerary monument of Jacques de Souvré (1600-1670), governor of Touraine, was estimated at €2 to 3 million. Alexandre Lacroix, sculpture specialist at Lacroix Jeannest, tells The Gazette Drouot“Until the 18th century, the French preferred wax or wood to present models to their patrons, and it was not until the 1730s that terracotta sculptures made their appearance in the Salon de l’Académie [royal academy].”
