A New Classicism
The sculpture of antiquity was the artistic ideal of the Neoclassical movement, which was based largely on the theoretical works of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), one of the greatest archaeologists and theoreticians of the 18th Century (the museum owns a bust of this historian by Deseine, which is exhibited on the first floor of the Darcy wing). The most important sculptors of the age made the journey to Rome in order to draw their inspiration at close hand from the models of antiquity. A lovely example is the Méléagre, sculpted in Rome by Scheffauer and sent to the Toulouse Academy as a reception piece, a combination of the Vatican's Méléagre and the Capitol's Antinoüs. New themes made their appearance: Belisarius (Houdon and Moitte), Socrates, Homer and Ossian are often repeated, by painters as well as sculptors. Alongside sculpture of mythological inspiration, allegory was very popular, particularly in commemorative sculpture which usually arose from a public commission.
The Minerve protégeant la France by Romagnési, a sculptor of Italian origin, is a perfect illustration of this: the original plaster, exhibited in the Salon of 1812, represented Minerve protégeant l'enfance du roi de Rome (now in New York's Metropolitan Museum). The fall of the Empire led the sculptor to transform the work, the marble for which had been provided by the State, into a sculpture in the round celebrating a crowned France, the symbol of the Bourbon Restoration.
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