égide rombaux · (1865–1942)

Vases · The Fables of Jean de la Fontaine

technical sheet

ARTIST Égide Rombaux
DATE ca. 1900
MATerial Marble and gilt bronze
DIMENSIONS Vase n°1 : 85,5 x 26 x 22 cm • Vase n°2 : 82 x 25 x 22 cm
 Signature E. Rombaux
 PROVENANCE
CONSERVATION  Collection Privée
About the work

This pair of vases ranks without reservation among the highlights of Égide Rombaux’s oeuvre and stands as one of the icons of Belgian Art Nouveau. Everything about them is infused with spirit and offers an ode to what those aiming for the purest refinement can only dream of. Here considerations of style seem wholly secondary to the artist, and the very abilities on which Rombaux’s work rests bring the pieces to a beguiling degree of life.

Each vase depicts a celebrated fable by the seventeenth-century French poet Jean de La Fontaine. The first illustrates The Raven and the Fox: holding a cheese in his beak, the raven is flattered into answering the fox and lets the morsel slip away. The second renders The Two Roosters, in which two birds fight over a hen; the victor boasts so loudly of his triumph that, to his ruin, he draws the attention of a vulture.

Uniting marble and gilt bronze, the vases display the sculptor’s virtuosity, placing narrative and allegory in the service of a sovereign decorative elegance.

the ARTIST

Égide rombaux

Schaerbeek, 1865 — 1942, Uccle

Son of the sculptor Félix Rombaux, Égide received a rigorous training under Guillaume De Groot and Albert Desenfans, rounded out by evening classes with Charles Van der Stappen. He worked for two years alongside Jef Lambeaux, the “Belgian Rodin,” on the Brabo Fountain in Antwerp. Winner of the Godecharle Prize and later the Prix de Rome, he lived in Italy, chiefly in Florence.

Back in Belgium, he set up his studio in Schaerbeek and produced his best-known sculptures, among them Daughters of Satan, acquired by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. His exceptional technique made his figures emerge from the marble as if from a mist; after 1900 he also excelled in ivory, celebrating the beauty of the nude and supple movement.