Angelica and Ruggiero Riding the Hippogriff
Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875) · c. 1840
A winged horse with the head and talons of a griffin leaps into the air, and on its back a knight in armour holds a naked young woman against him. They are Ruggiero and Angelica from Ariosto's epic Orlando Furioso, published in 1532. In the tenth canto the hero swoops down on the hippogriff to rescue Angelica, chained to a rock as food for a sea monster. Barye freezes the moment of escape: wings spread, forelegs drawn up, the two riders leaning into the rush of air. Look for the signature BARYE cast into the base under the front paws.
Barye modelled the group around 1840 as the central motif of a clock garniture for the duc de Montpensier, youngest son of King Louis-Philippe. The bronze in front of you is a repetition of that central figure, given a green patina. Barye is best known for his animals, and the fantastic beast lets him fuse horse, bird and lion in one body. The group came to the Louvre in 1902 with the bequest of the collector Thomy Thiéry, whose Barye bronzes form the core of this room.
Did You Know? The hippogriff, half horse and half griffin, was invented by Ariosto as a creature so unlikely that it became a byword for the impossible.
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