A Rembrandt for the Petit Palais

26/7/25 – Acquisition – Paris. Similarly, Petit Palais, Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris – Toe amateurs in its original glass cage, the Rembrandt wax bust, by Stanislas Lami (ill. 1). Therefore, could only hit the eye of the emissaries of this Parisian museum when it was presented at the Tefaf in 2024 by Philippe Mendes. Consequently, The Petit Palais was therefore able to announce its acquisition. Nevertheless, a few months later, making this work the art ambassador of the sculptor so far absent from the municipal collections. However, We know him above all as art historian. author of one (monumental) French school sculptors dictionary – In several volumes – which is always authority. There is no doubt that the choice of material seduced as much here as the model. as its author immortalized as bronze, as evidenced by the past version rembrandt petit palais at Christie’s or the copy belonging to the Château de Puiseaux in Montbouy, in the Loiret [1].

1. Stanislas Lami (1858-1944)
Buste de Rembrandtaround 1896
Tinted wax – 30 x 42 x 15 cm
Paris. Petit Palais, Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris
Photo: Alexandre Lafore

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Eclectic sculptor, Lami practiced all genres, and all the materials, but the wax occupied a singular place in his work, just like the busts – retrospective – of which he exhibited a selection in 1901 at the Salon du Cercle Volney. Since the end of the 19th century. Stanislas Lami had shaped Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Chardin or the tower, including a pretty wax rembrandt petit palais (ill. 2) Haded in 2002 at the Antoine Lécuyer museum in Saint-Quentin. Conservative in charge of sculptures at the Petit Palais. Anne-Charlotte Cathelineau puts in parallel the series of busts with the editorial company of Stanislas Lami, the process of celebration of great artistic figures being hardly distant. But the purpose of these busts is not very clear: their low number of bronze editions does not imagine. that they were intended for …