A bas-relief by the sculptor David d’Angers which served as a sketch for the pedestal of the famous statue of Gutenberg, in Strasbourg, will be put on sale in Drouot this Friday. It represents great figures in American history and was discovered by chance in a barn.

                                                                                                                   The bas-relief put on sale in Drouot – Etude Daguerre Val de Loire

It’s a bit of Strasbourg history that will be sold this Friday at the Drouot hotel in Paris. A bas-relief by the sculptor David d’Angers will be put up for auction . It is an 1840 plaster sculpture which served as a sketch for an element of the pedestal of the statue of Gutenberg, Place Gutenberg in Strasbourg.

The sculpture was discovered completely by chance. It had been stored for 180 years in a box at the bottom of a barn in the Angers region. It was the auctioneer Malo de Lussac, from the Daguerre Val de Loire firm, who made this find. “This barn contained two wooden boxes. Inside, we discovered two bas-reliefs. The first represents “The benefits of printing in America”. This was a big surprise for me. On the pedestal of the statue of Gutenberg in Strasbourg, there are in fact four continents represented on each side. Ours therefore represents America. And the compositions of the bas-reliefs all have in the center a press which connects Gutenberg and famous people” explains the auctioneer.

                                                                                                                     Detail of the bas-relief of David d’Angers – Study Daguerre Val de Loire

The sculpture presents in profile, around a press, figures from the history of the United States: Jefferson, Franklin, Lafayette. A tribute to the knowledge brought into the world by printing. The work was therefore intended to be militant, explains Alexandre Lacroix, a sculpture expert at the Lacroix Jeannest firm in Paris, who appraised the work.

“It was a commission from the city of Strasbourg. The sculptor therefore made this statue of Gutenberg and then he thought about illustrating all of this. There he had the idea of ​​illustrating the benefits of printing on the four continents. “is super important because David d’Angers was a great humanist, a great republican. His idea was to spread knowledge through sculpture. So the title of these reliefs is the benefits of printing all over the world. It’s really the idea of ​​spreading ideas through printing, so it particularly spoke to him, beyond the monument, it was in agreement with his ideas” explains the specialist.

At the time David D’Angers was already a very fashionable star of sculpture. Its definitive bronze bas relief still sits on the statue of Gutenberg , on the square of the same name in Strasbourg. The bas-relief is on sale at a price of 20,000 to 30,000 euros.

Antoine Balandra

Journalist at Radio France