gabriel faraill · (1838–1892)

Young Girl

technical sheet

ARTIST Gabriel-Auguste-Emmanuel Faraill
DATE 1886 • exhibiteed at the Paris Salon
material  White Carrara marble
DIMENSIONS H. 190 cm
 Signature G. Faraill
 PROVENANCE Purchased at the 1886 Paris Salon by Prince Bibesco de Brancovan who placed it in his villa at Amphion near Lake Geneva.
CONSERVATION Private collection 
about the work

This imposing sculpture by the artist Gabriel-Auguste-Emmanuel Faraill was shown at the Paris Salon of 1886, where it was listed as lot 3870. It met with considerable success: the Parisian salonniers christened it “La Pudeur,” and the work was displayed before the left portico of the salon, in the central courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris.

As custom dictated when an artist was honoured, Faraill was given a prominent mention in the Golden Book of the 1886 Salon. The jury awarded him, by twenty-four votes out of thirty, a third-class medal. In September 1886, Prince Bibesco de Brancovan acquired the work for nine thousand francs and installed it in his villa at Amphion, on the shore of Lake Geneva.

Regarded even then as the major work of this artist from the Roussillon, the piece is remarkable both for its scale and for the maturity of its modelling, and survives in perfect condition. As most of his works are now held in public collections, it is rare to encounter one on the market.

the artist

Gabriel faraill

Saint-Marsal, 1838 — 1892, Paris

Gabriel Faraill, born at Saint-Marsal in the Pyrénées-Orientales around 1838, worked as a joiner until the age of twenty-three before devoting himself to sculpture. He began his studies at Perpignan under M. Guiraud, curator of the Museum, then travelled to Paris on a stipend from the town of Perpignan, where he became a pupil of Oliva and Farochon.

He exhibited at the Salon from 1866 to 1891, earning honourable mentions in 1872 and 1884, and a third-class medal in 1886. To him are owed, in Paris, a marble bust of the sculptor Farochon at the École des Beaux-Arts, a stone bas-relief adorning the Hôtel de Ville, and a statue of the painter Hyacinthe Rigaud erected at Perpignan in 1890. He died in Paris in March 1892.