Hippolyte Moulin
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
.
Moulin, a shopkeeper's son, entered the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
in 1855 but was unable to afford to continue the lessons and had to become a language teacher in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to support himself. He subsequently studied with Auguste-Louis-Marie Ottin
Auguste Ottin
Auguste-Louis-Marie Jenks Ottin was a French academic sculptor and recipient of the decoration of the Legion of Honor.-Early life:...
and with Antoine-Louis Barye
Antoine-Louis Barye
Antoine-Louis Barye was a French sculptor most famous for his work as an animalier, a sculptor of animals.-Biography:Born in Paris, Barye began his career as a goldsmith, like many sculptors of the Romantic Period...
.
His bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
statue A Lucky Find at Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
(Une Trouvaille à Pompei) (1863) depicts a nude
Nudity
Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
boy with a spade dancing for joy with one leg raised, because he has unearthed a Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
statuette. His nude pose reflects that of the statuette itself, possibly indicating that the statue depicts the excavator imagining himself in the original statuette's pose. The statue won a medal at the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
of 1864 and became his most famous work. The life-size original was bought by the French Government for 7,000 franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
s and exhibited at the Exposition Universelle
Exposition Universelle (1867)
The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...
in 1867. It stands on a tall pedestal in the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
alongside Alexandre Falguière
Alexandre Falguière
Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière was a French sculptor and painter.He was born in Toulouse...
's Winner of the Cockfight
Cockfight
A cockfight is a blood sport between two roosters , held in a ring called a cockpit. Cockfighting is now illegal throughout all states in the United States, Brazil, Australia and in most of Europe. It is still legal in several U.S. territories....
on an adjacent pedestal - another bronze nude dancing boy poised on one leg that had also been exhibited at the 1864 Salon.
Moulin won further Salon medals in 1867 and 1869, and another at the Exposition Universelle, 1878
Exposition Universelle (1878)
The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May through to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.-Construction:...
.
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
1875, now also in the Musée d'Orsay alongside other marble statues.)
A Secret from On High depicts a life-size adolescent nude Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
(Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
) whispering a secret to a herm
Herma
A Herma, commonly in English herm is a sculpture with a head, and perhaps a torso, above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height...
- a pillar topped by a bust of himself - knowing that it will never repeat what he tells it.
Moulin spent his last few years in a rest home for the mentally ill.
External links
- Insecula (French language): index to pages on A Secret from On High and A Lucky Find at Pompeii
- Insecula: index to three views of Falguière's Winner of the Cockfight in which Moulin's adjacent A Lucky Find at Pompeii is also prominently visible
- Visitor photo of A Lucky Find at Pompeii - links to 1 Mb version (DeviantArtDeviantArtdeviantART is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others. deviantArt, Inc...
) - A secret from On High (misidentified as Pan and Bacchus; links to very big version) (WebshotsWebshots-History:Webshots was created in 1995 by Auralis, Inc. in San Diego, California. It was initially a sports oriented screen saver sold at retail for desktop computers. Founders Andrew Laakmann, Danna Laakmann, Nick Wilder, and Narendra Rocherolle migrated the desktop software to the Web and became...
)