Henry Cros (1840-1907). Sculptor and draughtsman

‘Henry Cros, sculptor and draughtsman’, as the exhibition is titled, but also a painter, glassmaker and ceramist, of whom Rodin wrote in the preface to the catalogue of his sale after his death in January 1909 ‘[he] was one of the most glorious men of nineteenth-century statuary. He passed unknown", and remains largely unknown today. An occasional feature of thematic exhibitions of nineteenth-century sculpture - such as Masks (see article) and En couleurs. La sculpture polychrome (see article) at the Musée d’Orsay or the recent Visages féminins at the Mathieu Néouze gallery (see article) - he has had only a handful of monographic presentations. After an anthology of his works in the Symbolist Room at the Petit Palais in 2009-2010 (see article) and a short exhibition presented by Chantal Kiener at the Antoine Tarantino gallery in 2017 (see article), just over a hundred of his works are now on show at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, curated by Jean-Luc Olivié, curator in charge of the museum’s glass collections and a specialist in the artist whose rediscovery he initiated in the 1980s, Véronique Ayroles, curatorial assistant in the same collections, and with the collaboration of Bénédicte Gady in charge of the graphic arts department.

1. Henry Cros (1840-1907)
Ascagne Asleep, 1865
Pen and brown ink - 19 x 24 cm
Private collection
Photo: Private collection

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While the remarkable collection of drawings, drafts and sketches by Henry Cros held by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs makes up the bulk of the works on display, it is complemented by a small group of around twenty paintings and sculptures by the artist usually kept in storage - for the most part - and around twenty loans - paintings, sculptures and drawings - from private collections, Parisian galleries and the Musée National de Sèvres, the only public lender. There are no works from the rich Henry Cros collections at the Petit Palais and the Musée d’Orsay, or…