AFTER ALEXANDRE FALGUIÈRE (1831-1900) Balzac seated Bronze with brown patina shaded with green Signed on the bench on which Balzac is seated on the right: "Falguière". Minor wear to patina Height 25 cm - Width 18 cm This is a reduction of the statue of Balzac seated (avenue de Friedland, Paris 8e). "Unlike Rodin, who had designed a statue of Balzac to be cast in bronze, Falguière imagined a monument in marble. The sculptor died before completing the monument commissioned by the Société des Gens de Lettres in 1898, just after rejecting Rodin's final project. The statue was then executed by Paul Dubois, based on the final model that Falguière had exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1899, and inaugurated in 1902 on avenue de Friedland in Rodin's presence. Falguière wasn't chosen for lack of a better choice, and he didn't sign up for opportunism. In the last third of the 19th century, he was considered one of the most important sculptors in France. Moreover, as early as 1883, he supported the project to erect a monument to Balzac, whom he considered "the illustrious father of the modern novel". Finally, when he announced in 1898 that, following in Rodin's footsteps, he "would accept to make the statue", he had already conceived the project and made an initial sketch, which provided him with a starting point. However, the task remained a difficult one for the sculptor, who had to both satisfy his clients, who had been shocked by Rodin's Balzac, and free himself from the hold that such a powerful work could not fail to exert on him. After some hesitation, he returned to the earlier project of a seated Balzac in monk's robe. This statuette is a reduction of the final work." (Extract from the website La Maison de Balzac, which has in its collections a bronze version very close to the one presented here, with the same dimensions).