Roger and Angelica Mounted on the Hippogriff

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Edward Hopper

modeled c. 1840 (cast c. 1884)

Antoine Louis Barye
French, 1795-1875

Chivalric tales from the Renaissance—especially the Italian epic poem Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1516)—were a popular source of artistic inspiration in the early 19th century. This scene from Orlando Furioso shows the knight Roger saving the maiden Angelica from a dragon. This group formed part of a decorative ensemble for a chimney piece, which was commissioned by the Duc de Montpensier, the younger son of King Louis-Philippe, around 1840. It proved so popular that the composition was recast frequently during and after Barye’s lifetime.

On View: European Painting and Sculpture, Gallery 220

Artist: Antoine Louis Barye
Title: Roger and Angelica Mounted on the Hippogriff
Origin: France
Date: 1835–1845
Medium: Bronze
Inscriptions: Inscribed faintly: Barye on front of base. Inside on tape: 5474.
Dimensions: 51.1 × 66.8 × 32 cm (20 1/8 × 26 1/4 × 12 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: George F. Harding Collection
Reference Number: 1984.34

Charles DeKay, Life and Works of Barye the Sculptor (New York: Barye Monument Association, 1889), pp. 70-73, no. 53.
Jane Van Nimmen and Ruth Mirolli, Nineteenth-Century French Sculpture: Monuments for the Middle Class, (Louisville, Kentucky: J.B. Speed Art Museum, 1971), pp. 39–50.
Stuart Pivar, The Barye Bronzes: A Catalogue Raisonne (Woodbridge, England: Antique Collectors' Club, 1974), pp. 7, 20, 65, cat. F16.
Glenn F. Benge, Antoine-Louis Barye: Sculptor of Romantic Realism (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984), pp. 95-96, fig. 84.
Elizabeth Briggs Lynch, “Barye’s Mythological Subjects,” Antoine-Louis Barye: The Corcoran Collection, edited by Lilien F. Robinson and Edward J. Nygren (Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1988), pp. 45-47.
Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, La griffe et la dent, Antoine Louise Barye (1795–1875) sculpteur animalier (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1996), pp. 38-45.
Édith Mannoni, Barye (Paris: Les Éditions de l’Amateur, 1996) pp. 79, 96-98.
Michel Poletti and Alain Richarme, Barye: Catalogue raisonné des sculptures (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), pp. 92-95, cats. F22, F23.

Art Institute of Chicago, "Small Bronzes from Chicago Collections," 22 July - 8 October 1972 [no cat.].

George F. Harding, Jr. (d. 1939), Chicago, by 1939; bequeathed to the George F. Harding Museum, Chicago, 1939; transferred to the Art Institute, 1982; accessioned by the Art Institute, 1984.

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