Divine Head and Muse Henry CROS. Wax head. Overall dimensions:...
Divine Head and Muse
Henry CROS. Wax head.
Overall dimensions: 44 x 29 x 20 cm (including 8 cm base).
Glass case: 60 x 36.5 x 26.5 cm.
Wax (bust) and gilded wood (base). Traces of fine cracks; slight dent on the nose. Preserved in a glass case.
Inscribed, dated, and signed on the back: “After the head in Lille – H. Cros – 1869.”
The original head arrived in Lille in 1835, bequeathed to the museum by the painter Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1762–1834), who was active in Rome, where he had certainly purchased it, and which he had dated “from the time of Raphael.”
Strange, fascinating, unsettling—an embodiment of ideal beauty—it is hard to describe the impression it still makes today on those who contemplate it, visitors and researchers who continue to try in vain to identify its artist or even simply to date it. Among its most ardent admirers in the 19th century was Alexandre Dumas, Jr., who described it as “divine” and attributed it to Leonardo da Vinci.
He asked the young sculptor Henry Cros (1840–1907), who had earned a reputation as a “wax modeler,” to create for him a replica that was “as accurate as possible.” Cros spent a month at the Lille Museum, arousing the curiosity and interest of curators, guards, and visitors, as well as that of the local press, which devoted several articles to him—prompting this amused remark from Cros: “My fame is immense.”
Dumas Fils, pleased with the result, placed the head in his study, and a few years later referred to it as his “muse.”
Cros, whose reputation was cemented by this sculpture, did not produce a slavish copy of the Lille model: he used wax for the entire bust (head and drapery) and gilded wood for the base, whereas his model features terracotta for both the drapery and the base. While the tilt of the head is indeed the same, the facial expression is slightly different, and the melancholy it conveys is characteristic of Cros, who was known for his love of dreams and poetry.
And this sculpture confirms the impression he gave to those around him of being “a sort of magician or alchemist.”
Bibliography: Laurence Riviale. Joconde or Madonna? The Wax Head of Lille, an Enigma of the Wicar Collection. Fortune and Reception. Clermont-Ferrand, PUBP, 2022.
Enclosed:
- [Henry CROS?] – 2 original sketches in brown ink. “After the Head of Lille. H. Cros. 1869.” 1 double-sided sheet, 250 x 198 mm, with tears and small areas of missing paper.
- A. MONGIN. Alexandre Dumas’s Study. Engraved by Van Elven. 280 x 220 mm. The head, resting on a pedestal to the right of the desk, turns its pensive face toward the writer.
Divine Head and Muse
Henry CROS. Wax head.
Overall dimensions: 44 x 29 x 20 cm (including 8 cm base).
Glass case: 60 x 36.5 x 26.5 cm.
Wax (bust) and gilded wood (base). Traces of fine cracks; slight dent on the nose. Preserved in a glass case.
Inscribed, dated, and signed on the back: “After the head in Lille – H. Cros – 1869.”
The original head arrived in Lille in 1835, bequeathed to the museum by the painter Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1762–1834), who was active in Rome, where he had certainly purchased it, and which he had dated “from the time of Raphael.”
Strange, fascinating, unsettling—an embodiment of ideal beauty—it is hard to describe the impression it still makes today on those who contemplate it, visitors and researchers who continue to try in vain to identify its artist or even simply to date it. Among its most ardent admirers in the 19th century was Alexandre Dumas, Jr., who described it as “divine” and attributed it to Leonardo da Vinci.
He asked the young sculptor Henry Cros (1840–1907), who had earned a reputation as a “wax modeler,” to create for him a replica that was “as accurate as possible.” Cros spent a month at the Lille Museum, arousing the curiosity and interest of curators, guards, and visitors, as well as that of the local press, which devoted several articles to him—prompting this amused remark from Cros: “My fame is immense.”
Dumas Fils, pleased with the result, placed the head in his study, and a few years later referred to it as his “muse.”
Cros, whose reputation was cemented by this sculpture, did not produce a slavish copy of the Lille model: he used wax for the entire bust (head and drapery) and gilded wood for the base, whereas his model features terracotta for both the drapery and the base. While the tilt of the head is indeed the same, the facial expression is slightly different, and the melancholy it conveys is characteristic of Cros, who was known for his love of dreams and poetry.
And this sculpture confirms the impression he gave to those around him of being “a sort of magician or alchemist.”
Bibliography: Laurence Riviale. Joconde or Madonna? The Wax Head of Lille, an Enigma of the Wicar Collection. Fortune and Reception. Clermont-Ferrand, PUBP, 2022.
Enclosed:
- [Henry CROS?] – 2 original sketches in brown ink. “After the Head of Lille. H. Cros. 1869.” 1 double-sided sheet, 250 x 198 mm, with tears and small areas of missing paper.
- A. MONGIN. Alexandre Dumas’s Study. Engraved by Van Elven. 280 x 220 mm. The head, resting on a pedestal to the right of the desk, turns its pensive face toward the writer.
