« Warriors at Rest », ​Exceptional bronze fire fender by Jean-François GECHTER (1796-1844)

A parallel is obvious with Charles Martel and Abderame, King of the Saracens, a plaster sculpture presented by Gechter to the Paris Salon of 1833. A model in bronze is briefly ordered by the Ministry for Trade and Industry, cast by Gonon and preserved now at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The sculptor represents Charles Martel in armor dismounting his enemy, with a number of details that we can also recognize in our pair of andirons. Cast again in 1849 for a mantelpiece ornament, also kept at the Louvre, the group came with two candelabras decorated with warriors, a candelabra model of which we happen to own a sumptuous edition.

First of all, the expression of the fighters pride is the mark of a romanticism that is distinctive of Gechter. The artists gives a great attention in his works to the representation of faces, providing vigorous features that catch the light. Abderame's face is absolutely similar to that of the character on the right of our andirons. Likewise, the care given to Abderame's helmet is customary of Gechter, expressing his romantic taste for picturesque armors of the old times. One notices this peculiar care on his group Joan of Arc Unhorsing an Englishman (1838), preserved in the Royal Castle of Chinon, as well as it is notable on our piece.

The preciseness in the description of the coat of mail's links, the typical profusion of weapons of his compositions, the decorations he designs for the armors, all form a network of clues letting no doubt on the attribution of our Warriors at Rest. The right-character of the andirons has indeed a very similar armor to the one Gechter designed for his Richard of Warwick Fighting, a model of which, cast in 1844, is preserved in the Chateau of Blois. One recognizes the helmet form, the finely crafted brigandine wore above the coat of mail, as well as the form of knee-pads. Above all, Gechter alternates in his compositions the smooth, rough or chiseled surfaces, on the entire sculpture, just as for our Warriors at Rest. The extraordinary quality of our andirons' chiseling is thus leading us to consider them as a Gechter model, which would consequently had been sculpted before his death in 1844, with a bronze cast prior to 1860.

Jean-François Theodore Gechter (1796-1844), master of the Romanticism, regularly exhibited his works at the Paris Salon between 1824 and 1844. A student of the painter Antoine-Jean Gros, who is known to have meaningfully influenced Gericault and Delacroix, Gechter makes the spirit of romanticism palpable in his choices. In 1824 already, he displays war subjects with a Defeated Gladiator, and a Warrior pulling an arrow off his heel. He is noticed with Charles Martel and Abderame at the Paris Salon of 1833, when all the minds are still rocked by Victor Hugo's medieval fantasy, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Fully participating in this medieval vogue, he was distinguished with a gold medal as soon as 1834 for his Battle in Aboukir. Showing a clear preference for war scenes, Gechter can indeed deploy there his sense of movement and his great skills as a modeler.

Called very soon to realize huge statues for the Parisian public monuments, he designs in 1837, for the Arch of Triumph on Place de l'Etoile, a bas-relief of the Battle of Austerlitz, and the statues of the Rhône and the Rhin rivers, for the fountain on Place de la Concorde. A renowned artist, he provides St-Magdalene Church with a statue of St John (1840), and the State Council with a marble statue of King Louis-Philip.

The artist will however keep on making little groups displaying elaborately dressed characters, with anachronisms and fantasy sometimes, but very representative of the troubadour taste he was found of. Gechter's little bronzes are in "great vogue" under the July Monarchy, according to his contemporaries' admission. The Biographical Directory of French Artists speaks highly of "the details (…) as sharply modeled as characters" (Guyot de Fère, 1841). Many museums hold specimens of these bronzes. Let us quote again the Knight of Ailly in the Chateau of Pau, and Francis I On a Hunt, in the Chateau of Blois.

His sculptures have been edited several times, but it seems Gechter opened as well his own bronze casting studio. From 1841, he emerges in the Directory of Trade as a bronze maker and a statue-smelter. He would have thus crafted and signed himself the molds he needed for sand casting. He is likely then to have organized the casting and the sales of his models in the galleries of Paris, London, Berlin or Dresden.