“Ganaï, the Indian singer” bronze, Laoust André-Louis-Adolphe (Douai 1843 – Paris 1924)

Large bronze of an Indian singer called “Ganaï”. He spreads his arms with his sitar in one hand while singing. Signed.

Size: H 79cm – diameter of the base 30 cm

Frensch school. Modelled by Laoust in 1885.

Lit: this model was casted by Thiébaut frères as a fountain subject (H 180cm) and ordered by the French state in 1886 and awarded to the Luxembourg Gardens. In 1904, the bronze was sent to Lamalou-les-Bains. The vast base was enhanced by a frieze in sandstone-ceramics of Sèvres. It would have been melted down during the Second World War.
André Louis Adolphe Laoust was a French sculptor born on 16 September 1843 in Douai and died on 7 May 1924 in Paris. He was a student of the sculptor François Jouffroy at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, André Laoust exhibited at the Salon of 1868 and became a member of the Société des Artistes Français in 1885. With members of his family, he founded the Ateliers Laoust in 1874, which employed several dozen people over several generations. He won a silver medal at the 1889 Universal Exhibition for the Indian Singer of Ganaï. Laoust designed sculptures for the Manufacture de Sèvres between 1891 and 1905. He taught sculpture at the Douai academy from 1892 to 1901. He won a silver medal in modelling at the academic schools competition in 1893.