CATALOGUE ROGER GODCHAUX

Comte Arthur Marie DU PASSAGE

(1838 - 1909)


Comte Arthur Marie DU PASSAGE

(1838 - 1909)


The count du Passage, was a military who discovered his vocation as a sculptor and began practising in the ateliers of de Barye and de Mêne. He started at the Salon in 1865, where he exposed a wax sculpture which represented an agonizing deer. When he was second-lieutenant in Maubeuge, he decided to abandon the military in order to focus uniquely on sculptures. He was also a painter and an illustrator, he produced many bronze sculptures and he regularly participated at the Salon, from 1865 to 1893. After 1893, he continued nevertheless to sculpt and in 1899 he realized his famous group named Le Piqueux or Le Veneur, who represented a huntsman with his four dogs. His bronzes, finely worked, are made in a very realist style and they characterize themselves for the elegance of the lines and of the attitudes and they mainly represent hunting subjects and horses. Even though he owned a house in Paris, the count du Passage principally lived in his castle in Frohen-le-Grand, where he died in 1909. His young brother, Viscount Charles Marie du Passage as his son were also animal sculptors. In the line of sculptors like the count Geoffroy de Ruillé, who didn’t need to create sculptures to live but only sculpted for passion, the bronzes of the count du Passage are rare on the market and very coveted.