Antoine-Augustin Préault

Antoine-Augustin Préault (October 6, 1809 – January 11, 1879) was a French sculptor of the "Romantic" movement. Born in the Marais district of Paris, he was better known during his lifetime as Auguste Préault.

A student of David d'Angers, Préault first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1833. He was not favorably looked upon by some of the artistic community's elite due to his outspokenness and because he was part of the circle of activists who participated in the French Revolution of 1830. During that period of turmoil, Préault's studio was vandalized and many of his plaster models were destroyed. As a result of these circumstances his work has been largely overshadowed by his contemporaries.

Antoine-Augustin Préault died in Paris in 1879 and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

"The fever of poetry, the drunkenness of beauty, the horror of vulgarity, and the madness of glory possessed and tormented Préault"

Words of nineteenth century critic describing Préault's work.

"Before this retrospective, Préault's work had fallen into oblivion, three masterpieces excepted: La Tuerie (The Killing) (Musée des Beaux Arts, Chartres), Ophelia (Musée d'Orsay) and the Christ in the Eglise Saint Gervais.

The exhibition therefore allowed the public to discover anew the great aspects of his work: subjects inspired by literature (Ophelia, Dante, Virgil) ; portraits and medallions (Delacroix) ; funeral sculpture (Silence), which draws its strength from its atemporality ; and such public commissions as the statue of Clemence Isaure in the Jardin du Luxembourg. By the sheer violence of his subjects, the novelty of his compositions and the spirit of his art, Préault may well deserve, as far as sculpture is concerned, the accolade of the greatest poet of unhappiness"

Comments by Musée d'0rsay at time of exhibition held on Preault's work.

It also holds a medallion depicting Thomas Shotter Boys.

"The rounded known as Le Silence was created for the tomb of Jacob Robles [1782-1842] in the Jewish section of the Parisian cemetery Pere Lachaise. Abandoning traditional funerary imagery, Auguste Préault fashioned an enigmatic and mysterious evocation of death in the skeletal face which is shrouded in drapery with a finger touching the lips. In part the image drew upon the traditional monastic symbol for silence in the cloisters, but here the sculptor also conveys a sense of ambiguity by leaving open whether the figure is living or dead. When Préault exhibited a bronze cast of Le Silence in 1849, it was hailed as "one of the representative works of modern art" and became an icon of Romanticism"

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