La Nature Se Dévoliant Devant La Science

‘La Nature Se Dévoliant Devant La Science’
A Fine Multipatinated Bronze Figure by Louis-Ernest Barrias
Cast by Susse Freres. Paris, Circa 1900
‘La Nature Se Dévoliant Devant La Science’ - nature revealing herself before Science; a very
fine multipatinated bronze figure with varied gilt highlights and green tinted Scarab Beatle
by Louis-Ernest Barrias (1874 – 1905), cast by Susses Freres.
Signed: ‘E. Barrias’, inscribed: ‘Susse Fres Edts Paris’. Stamped: ‘P’ and with the ‘Susses
Freres Editeurs Paris’ Cachet.
This important bronze figure is a finely cast example of Barrias's most celebrated work, a
homage to advances made in scientific exploration and a masterpiece of early Art Nouveau.
The figure depicts a young woman, the allegory of Nature, removing her veil to reveal her
face and bare breasts to the cold gaze of science.

Following in the spirit of pioneers
of polychromy such as Charles-
Henri-Joseph Cordier and Eugène
Cornu this figure was carved using
expensive and luxurious materials
such as Algerian onyx for the
drapery, lapis lazuli for the ribbon
and malachite for the scarab. This
figure is now in the collection of
the Musée d’Orsay.
The figure first appeared in white marble at the Paris
Salon of 1893 with the longer title of 'La Nature
mystérieuse et voilée se découvre devant la Science’ in
its fully nude form. Suitably it was purchased by the
medical faculty at l'Ecole de Médecine in Bordeaux.
Barrias returned to the theme a few years later
exhibiting a related sculpture at the 1899 Salon, simply
titled ‘La Nature se dévoilant'.
Above: ‘La Nature se dévoilant', exhibited in 1889
Left: The 1902 Version in white marble
Left jggggggggggggggggg
A final version in white marble was made in 1902 and
acquired by the École de Medicine in Paris.
Left :

The first bronze casts were exhibited by Susse Frères, in various sizes and to great critical
acclaim, at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. Awarded a prestigious Grand Prix at the Liège
Exhibition of 1905, the renowned bronzier Théodore Millet deemed the bronze figure a ‘tour
de force’ for the Susse firm and proclaimed it 'the finest of the works exhibited'.
Louis-Ernest Barrias
Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841 – 1905) was one of the most
celebrated and influential sculptors of the late nineteenth
century. Along with contemporaries such as Frédéric Auguste
Bartholdi (of Statue of Liberty fame), Barrias was influential in
re-inventing a new sophisticated approach to allegorical
representation. This refined approach is evident in the
romantic figure of
Nature Revealing
Herself, but also in the
handling of themes of
modernity such as his
Allegory to Electricity for
the Gallery of Machines at the 1889 Exposition
Universelle.
Born in Paris into a family of well known artists, Louis-
Ernest started his career as a painter studying under
Léon Cogniet. He later took up sculpture studying under
Pierre-Jules Cavelier and following his admittance to the
École des Beaux-Arts in 1858, François Jouffroy. In 1865
Barrias won the Prix de Rome and was involved in the
decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva
in the Champs-Élysées.
Barrias in his studio
Allegory to Electricity for the
Gallery of Machines at the 1889
Exposition Universelle
In 1878 he was made a Knight
of the Legion of Honour, an
officer in 1881, and a
commander in 1900. Barrias
replaced Dumont at the
Institut de France in 1884 and
succeeded Cavelier as
professor at the École des
Beaux-Arts in the same year.

Susse Frères
By the early 1830’s the firm was
selling small bronze statuettes and
began to focus seriously on the
process of bronze casting as early
as 1839. Under the direction of the
brothers, Michel Victor and
Amedee Susse, they produced in that year a six-page
catalogue of bronze sculpture.
Tracing its origins to 1758, the Paris foundry of Susse
Frères is one of the oldest art foundries in Europe.
Originally a stationery company they were
appointed suppliers to Empress Marie Louise from
1812 and the Duc de Berry from 1818. Following
the 1830 revolution they were granted a Royal
Warrant as an official supplier to the monarchy.
Above& Above Left: Frontispieces from Susse
Frères Catalogue of Bronzes
In 1847 the firm obtained the right to use the Sauvage procedure for reduction, similar to
the technique invented by Achille Collas and employed by Ferdinand Barbedienne. The
ability to produce reductions of large scale bronzes enabled Susse Frères to create editions
of work in various sizes and opened up the market to collectors and to commercial success.
Michel Victor Susse died in 1860 leaving Amedee as the sole director of the foundry until
1880, when Albert Susse became the director.
Sauvage and his Reducteur Mechanique

Susse Frères obtained the rights to produce editions of the works of some of the most
important French sculptors of the nineteenth century including: James Pradier, Pierre-Jules
Mêne , Auguste Cain , Pierre-Nicolas Turgenev , Yevgeny Alexandrovich Lanceray, Louis-
Ernest Barrias , Jules Dalou , Alexandre Falguière and Mathurin Moreau.
The list of Editions by Barrias in the Susse Frères 1905 Sales Catalogue

Renowned for the quality of its casting and
rich multipatinated finishes, the firm exhibited
with notable success at many of the great
exhibitions of the nineteenth century,
receiving a prize medal at the 1851 Great
Exhibition in London and a Grand Prix at the
1905 Lieges Exposition Universelle amongst
other awards.
Iconography and Allegory
In this sculptural tour de force, Barrias draws upon allegorical and didactic themes from
Renaissance and Baroque sculpture to create a figure that is visually striking - intimate and
coquettish, yet provocative and revelatory.
From ancient times allegory has been used
to portray complex intellectual ideas and
none has been more important in the
history of art, than the concept of nature’s
mystery. The iconography of Barrias’s
figure plays into the historical trope of the
Veil of Isis: the allegorical figure of the
mythical veiled Egyptian goddess, who from
ancient times represented the hidden
mysteries of nature.
The Susse stand at the Exposition Universelle of 1900
Barrias’s Medals from The Great
Exhibition, London 1851

The Scarab Beatle pinning the folds of
the drapery, beneath the exposed
bosom of the figure, acts as a signifier to
the Egyptian origin of the representation
and alludes perhaps to a more complex
symbolism of death and resurrection
and the contradictory character of
nature itself. Perhaps it is a subtle
warning that natures secrets maybe
revealed, but at a cost.
There have always been two
contradictory approaches to
Detail of the Scarab holding the drapery
understanding nature and as Heraclitus
pronounced Phusis kruptesthai philei –
‘Nature loves to hide’. The philosopher Pierre Hadot in his book ‘The Veil of Isis: An Essay on
the History of the Idea of Nature’, identifies the two approaches to nature as the
Promethian, which through scientific
investigation and discovery attempts
to dominate nature and forcibly
remove her veil, and the Orphic or
poetic approach which seeks a unity
with nature and views her
divestment as a vulgar and
uncivilised act.
In Europe from the time of the
Enlightenment scientific investigation
played an increasingly important role
in everyday life and Western
consciousness. With the increasing
pace of discovery, with mankind harnessing almost
magical forces such as electricity and X-rays, it was
Genius unveiling a bust of nature by Goethe
with the bust of nature in the form of the
veiled polymastic Isis
only natural as the nineteenth century drew to a close, as Steven Armstrong writes, to
conceive of this scientific progress as ‘Removing the Veil’.
Barrias conceived this figural masterpiece therefore at a time when the two opposing ideas
of nature were perhaps at their most divergent. Yet the genius of his sculptural approach
and the relationship of his iconography to his artistic expression achieve something more
tangible – a romantic vision of nature.
As Hadot suggests there is an alternative approach to the unveiling of Isis (or nature), an
expression non datur, one suggested by the Romantic vision of Rousseau, Goethe, and
Schelling, an allegorical expression of the sublime - ‘Nature is art and art is nature’.

Literature:
Hadot, Pierre, The Veil of Isis: an Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature, Harvard
University Press.
P.Fusco and H.W Janson, The Romantics to Rodin, Exhib, cat. Los Angeles Museum of Art,
1980, pp. 118, 120, no. 10.
Max Collignon, The Journal of ancient and modern art, 3rd year t. VI, No. 30, September 10,
p. 191-198, Paris, 1899.
Armstrong, Steven, The Veil of Isis: The Evolution of an Archetype Hidden in Plain Sight