Pricing & History
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Sold for
$23500.00
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Sold Date
October 2008
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Source
NEAL AUCTION Co., New Orleans, LA, USA
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Attributed to Lorenzo Bartolini (Italian, 1777-1850), "Portrait Bust of Col. Arthur Peronneau Hayne (1788/90-1867)", early 1830s, white marble, unsigned, on original socle inscribed "A. P. HAYNE." in tinted letters on front tablet, height 28 in. (including socle), width 19 in., depth 10 in.; together with Thomas H. Benton, A Thirty Years' View:...the Working of the American Government, vol. 2 (New York, 1856), twice inscribed "A.P. Hayne" and dated "'59", also inscribed "Mitchell Jr., A.P. Hayne was your great-great grandfather. Love-Mother." $15000/25000 Note: The direct model for this highly important European sculpture of an early American statesman is a famous bust of "Emperor Alexander I of Russia," carved at Rome in 1821-22 by the most sought-after sculptor in Europe, Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844). From that imperial prototype this bust exactly repeats the unusual arrangement of the drapery, and the identical wide bandolier across the nude chest; it even precisely replicates the position and function of the clasp at the top of the left shoulder. Certain telling variations introduced in the "Hayne" bust, however, clearly bespeak a different hand: the clasp is here flattened into a wafer-like profile, as it is in the Napoleonic commission of Lorenzo Bartolini's "Baciocchi" bust of 1809; and this more rounded compression of the arm truncations, coupled with a characteristic lengthening of the neck, produce an imposing verticality typical of Bartolini, the greatest Italian sculptor of the post-Canova generation. Above all, the "Hayne" bust and Bartolini's "Baciocchi" share the exceedingly rare idiosyncrasy of an incised, dark-tinted name inscription in large block capitals in the same position on the socle tablet, in which even the exact treatments of the letter-forms are precisely comparable. The highly dynamic handling of the hair, in this spirited portrait, is another unmistakable trademark of Bartolini's. The circumstances under which a private citizen of South Carolina was able to order a bust of this exalted quality have to do with Hayne's status as a popular hero of the War of 1812—above all his conspicuous valor at the Battle of New Orleans (1815)—and his resulting intimate friendship with Andrew Jackson. Hayne had retired from the Army in 1820 to farm and practice law, but was later drafted for the South Carolina legislature; he served as a delegate to the Electoral College confirming Jackson's presidency (1828), and was rewarded (27 April 1830) with an appointment as military attaché to the Mediterranean (very probably through the good offices of his compatriot John C. Calhoun, who as recent Secretary of War and as Jackson's Vice-President, was highly concerned with such postings). Hayne's five years abroad (through 1834 or early 1835) evidently offered him access, in Rome or Florence, to Bartolini's then-preeminent studio; in 1836 President Jackson offered him the ambassadorship to Brussels, but he preferred to remain in Charleston. In 1858 he was appointed for a few months to fill an unexpired term in the U. S. Senate, during which time a photographic portrait by Mathew Brady shows him a full quarter-century older than his striking Neo-Classical image in this splendid bust. References: A Brief Sketch of the Life and Military Services of Arthur P. Hayne of SC (Philadelphia, 1837; repr. New York, 1852), esp. p. 21; The Hayne House, Charleston, SC (www.haynehouse.com); Marquis James, Life of Andrew Jackson (New York, 1938), pp. 537, 692, 863 n. 16, 882 n. 33; Andrew S. Ciechanowiecki, Paintings & Sculptures, 1770-1830 (Heim Gallery, London, 1972), pp. 25-6, pl. 44 ("Alexander"); John Winter, et al., European Sculpture and Works of Art (Trinity Fine Art, London, 1988), pp. 70-1, pl. 54 ("Baciocchi"); Charles Janoray, The Classical Tradition in Sculpture (New York, 2000), pp. 16-17, no. 4 (Bartolini, "Young Man," 1830s); Ettore Spalletti, "Bartolini, Lorenzo," The Dictionary of Art (Grove, London, 1996), vol. 3, pp. 294-7.
