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Jules (Pierre) van Biesbroeck (Belgian, 1873-1965): A patinated bronze figure of an Algerian elder together with a patinated bronze figure of an Algerian male (2) image 1
Jules (Pierre) van Biesbroeck (Belgian, 1873-1965): A patinated bronze figure of an Algerian elder together with a patinated bronze figure of an Algerian male (2) image 2
Lot 397AR

Jules (Pierre) van Biesbroeck (Belgian, 1873-1965): A patinated bronze figure of an Algerian elder together with a patinated bronze figure of an Algerian male

Home & Interiors
18 – 19 April 2023, 10:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £573.75 inc. premium

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Jules (Pierre) van Biesbroeck (Belgian, 1873-1965): A patinated bronze figure of an Algerian elder together with a patinated bronze figure of an Algerian male

the first figure depicting a bearded semi-clad figure with outstretched arms, the cast with Alexis Rudier, Fondeur Paris foundry mark, the second figure depicting a semi-clad figure with outstretched arms, raised on integral square base, also with Alexis Rudier, Fondeur Paris foundry mark, 35cm high and 30cm high overall (2)

Footnotes

Provenance
Property from the collection of Joan Katherine Dummet, artist and sculptor (British,1905-2005)

Joan Katherine Dummett was born in Crouch End, North London, the third of six children born to the lawyer Sir Robert Ernest Dummett and his wife Emma. In 1923 her mother took her and her four sisters, aged between four and twenty two on a grand tour of Europe which included visits to Paris, Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

After arriving in Bordigherea in Italy, a town which was at that time known as an artist's community, her mother made enquiries to locate an artist who might teach Joan painting and sculpture as she had shown great artistic promise back in London. She was subsequently introduced to the artist and sculptor Jules van Biesbroeck (Belgium, 1873-1965) who agreed to take on the young Joan as a pupil.

The pair got on very well and Biesbroeck was sufficiently impressed with her progress that when the family moved on from the town, Joan, then aged seventeen, stayed on, making regular visits to the artist and his family. Joan initially was chaperoned by and lodged with the nuns of the Convent Santa Chiara in the town before she finally became more independent and moved to the Hotel Bella Vista. Joan stayed in Bordigherea as van Biesbroeck's pupil for three years and he and his family later visited the Dummetts family in England for Christmas in 1923, and then at regular intervals up until the beginning of the second world war. In the three years after 1923, Joan sculpted a bust of an Italian peasant woman which was cast in Rome and then later exhibited at the RA and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. However, in 1926 the teacher-pupil relationship was severed when van Biesbroeck decided to move to Algiers. Letters from Joan to her family from around that time, record that Biesbroeck invited her to visit him, but it is unclear if she ever did. In the intervening years van Biesbroeck maintained a prolific correspondence with Joan, although his letters record that the climate in Algeria did not agree with him and that he struggled to obtain artists materials.

However van Biesbroeck continued to encourage Joan in her work during the 1920s and into the 1930s when she devoted her time between London and Paris. At this time Van Biesbroeck also spent time in Paris and met up with Joan during one of their visits. Their working relationship was cemented when the two exhibited together at the Gieves Gallery in London in 1931, showing paintings by Jules and sculpture by Joan. A copy of the exhibition catalogue is now archived in National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A letter dating from the time just prior to the exhibition from Joan to her mother records that van Biesbroeck expressed the wish that their exhibition would be a great success. In the letter Joan also records that van Biesbroeck asked her to visit other earlier exhibitions at the same gallery to see if the usual attendance would give them sufficient exposure. However, she then goes on to record that he then chides her for being "too in love" to remember to carry this out. This indeed turned out to be a correct prophecy as Joan married in late 1931 and then went on to have two sons in 1932 and 1933.

Joan and van Biesbroeck continued to correspond until 1949 and she continued to work sporadically in sculpture and painting, mainly using family members as subjects, but she never exhibited publicly again. However, she channelled her artistic talents in nurturing the artistic potential of others, just as van Biesbroeck had for her, when she took up the post of lecturer and tutor in art and sculpture at the Sir John Cass College in London in the 1950s.

Additional information

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