“Tiger attacking a turtle”, Georges Gardet

A fine brown patina bronze depicting a tiger attacking a turtle. Beautiful anatomy of the animal. Signed and marked by the prestigious foundry Siot Decauville in Paris.

Size: H 25cm x W 50cm x D 20cm – without base H 21cm x W 42 cm x 13 cm

French school, late 19th and early 20th century bronze. Created by the artist in 1886 and presented in plaster at the Salon de Paris the same year.

Lit: A life-size bronze, together with another majestic group by Gardet, can be seen in front of the Musée de Laval in France. The reduced bronze version was produced by Siot-Decauville.
A bronze in the collections of the Château de Blois Museum.

Gardet is known as a worthy successor to Barye. He was a regular visitor to the “Jardin des Plantes” in Paris, where he could see wild animals up close and study their anatomy.

Lit: Georges Gardet is the son of the sculptor Joseph Gardet and the brother of the sculptor Joseph-Antoine Gardet. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the workshops of Aimé Millet and Emmanuel Frémiet. He is a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Society of French Artists. Georges Gardet participates in the Salon de Paris at the age of twenty and won his first success in 1891 with “Drama in the desert”. He receives many orders from wealthy clients for “portraits” of their pets or to decorate their garden or home. He creates plasters often translated in bronze as well as marbles. Some of his works will be replicated in biscuits at the Sèvres manufactory. Georges Gardet became an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1900. He made the two marble groups of lions with child decorating the Alexandre III bridge in Paris. He is considered one of the greatest artists of the French school of animal sculptors.