Welcoming you to Frick Madison is this monumental bronze sculpture of an angel, a compelling testament to the craftsmanship of the bronze casters of fifteenth-century France. This is one of the very few surviving metal sculptures from that time. During the French Revolution, works of this kind were routinely melted down so the bronze could be reused for weapons.
The sculpture is impeccably cast, with the body in a single piece and the two wings attached by pins at the back. The angel’s left wing is inscribed as follows, in French: “On the 27th day of March in the year 1475, Jean Barbet, called of Lyon, made this angel.” The day recorded in this signature was Easter Monday in 1475. Jean Barbet, identified as the caster, is listed in documents in Lyon, in the south of France, as a cannon maker to the king. Barbet is known to have created a number of weapons but no other sculpture of this kind. In the late fifteenth century, bronze foundries could produce works as varied as this angel and cannons, as well as a range of other metal objects. Technical studies have revealed that the cylindrical body of the angel was cast in a similar fashion to cannons. It was customary for works of art of this kind to be conceived by one artist and made by another. While Barbet proudly inscribed his name on the sculpture he casted, the artist responsible for the design remains anonymous.
The angel stands upright, covered in a flowing drapery—his knee slightly bent and his elongated finger pointing outward. In his left hand, he probably once held a cross or a staff, which is now lost. Why the angel was created and where it was originally located are unknown. It may have been made for the Sainte-Chapelle, the thirteenth-century chapel in the heart of Paris built to house the most treasured relics of the kings of France. The Barbet angel came to the Frick in 1943 from the collection of the financier J.P. Morgan. Before that, it decorated a staircase in the Château de Lude, in France.
The rather miraculous survival of the Barbet Angel dramatically underscores the importance of preserving remarkable works of art—one of the most important missions, if not the defining aim, of any museum.
Angel
The inside of the Angel's left wing bears the highly unusual inscription: "Le xxvii^e jour de mars / l’an mil cccc lx + xv Jehan Barbet dit de Lion fist cest angelot" (on the 27th day of March in the year 1460 + 15 Jean Barbet, called of Lyon, made this angel). Barbet probably was not the artist who designed the Angel but the proud master craftsman who cast it so expertly that only minor flaws are visible in its beautifully burnished surface. Barbet's occupation had equipped him with the relevant skills, for after all, a founder who made defective cannons would not have had a brilliant career. Test cleaning patches suggest that the present dark patina of the sculpture veils a lighter, more golden hue, proper to the original bronze. The Angel's wings are attached by means of pins inserted through sockets, but the rest of the figure appears to have been cast as a single piece; the left hand may once have held a staff or cross.
Neither the name of the Angel's designer, assuming it was not Barbet, nor its destination or purpose is known. Floods, war, and the destruction wreaked upon Lyon during the Revolution obliterated almost all of the city's early artistic heritage, leaving records with names of its many sculptors but little of their work for comparison. Perhaps the bronze survived only because it was made in or for some other location; no provenance earlier than the nineteenth century has been traced, although an unconfirmed report asserted that it came from the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The intended function of this benign creature is equally enigmatic. It may have formed part of an altar or fountain complex. But similar pointing figures were employed as weathervanes, and a Gabriel pointing toward the Virgin is found in Annunciation groups. The Angel's serene expression and the quiet, contained dignity of the columnar figure bring to mind the paintings of a Flemish contemporary; the Angel could almost be a Memling cast in bronze.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Marquis de Talhouet, Château du Lude, Sarthe. Félix Wildenstein. Georges Hoentschel, Paris. J. Pierpont Morgan, London and New York, 1906. Knoedler. Frick, 1943.
Source: Sculpture in The Frick Collection: German, Netherlandish, French and British. Volume IV. New York: The Frick Collection, 1970.
