Nubian Horseman Strangled by a Serpent
Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875) · c. 1843
A rider twists on his rearing horse as a huge serpent coils around his body and throat. The horse throws its head back, mouth open, while the man's arms strain against the snake. Barye packs the violence into a group only about twenty-five centimetres high, so lean in and follow the serpent from the horse's legs up to the rider's neck. The dark brown-green patina catches the light on the horse's muscles and the snake's scales. The signature BARYE is cast into the base behind the horse.
The group has an unusual history. In July 1843 Hélène of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Duchess of Orléans, bought it from Barye for three hundred and fifty francs, plus thirty-five francs for a black marble base, as a gift for the composer Hector Berlioz. It thanked him for dedicating his Symphonie funèbre et triomphante to her husband, the duc d'Orléans, who had died in a carriage accident the year before. The bronze thus stood in the home of a great Romantic composer, later passed into a private collection, and reached the Louvre by bequest in 1902.
Did You Know? The duchess paid three hundred and fifty francs for the bronze and a further thirty-five for its black marble base, according to the royal household accounts.
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