Elephant Begging

As she lifts her front right foot, this female elephant extends her trunk to ask for a reward. Rembrandt Bugatti depicted her ‘from life’ in Antwerp Zoo. It was the zoo that persuaded the Italian sculptor to come and settle in the city in 1907. It was famed for its great variety of animals, and the city’s port was a…

As she lifts her front right foot, this female elephant extends her trunk to ask for a reward. Rembrandt Bugatti depicted her ‘from life’ in Antwerp Zoo. It was the zoo that persuaded the Italian sculptor to come and settle in the city in 1907. It was famed for its great variety of animals, and the city’s port was a turntable for European imports of exotic fauna from Belgium’s Congo colony. For Bugatti the zoo was his open-air studio, as can be seen numerous photographs of him there. Unlike 19th-century animal artists, Bugatti did not make idealised scenes. He set out to capture the true life in his material. He created individualised, lively portraits in which he caught the character of his favourite animals. The young artist observed his models for a long time before he set to work. He made no preparatory drawings but modelled the animal on the spot, swiftly and intuitively, in clay or plastiline. One advantage of the brand-new plastiline was that it took longer to harden than clay, so remained mouldable for longer. Bugatti then transformed this first stage into plaster. Many of his plaster models have survived, whereas some of his not very durable plastilines were lost when casting the bronze. Bugatti’s bronze sculptures were cast using the lost wax technique in the famous Paris workshop of Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard, and this Elephant begging also bears the mark of that house. The Fonderie Hébrard was celebrated for its patina. And as a result of the high-quality finishing stage the impressions left by Bugatti’s fingers can also be seen in the surface of the bronze. Hébrard had already signed a contract with the young sculptor in 1904. He bought his sculptures for a fixed price, and until 1913 he put on annual exhibitions of his work. So as to avoid taking financial risks, the bronzes were usually only cast after they had been ordered. Hébrard normally produced them in different sizes and limited editions. Bugatti depicted the Indian elephants in Antwerp Zoo in different positions. The KMSKA patroness Léonie Osterrieth-Mols, for instance, had a cast of an Elephant walking in 1909. Elephant begging was cast in two sizes. The first cast in a series of five of the large edition was bought by the Antwerp Zoo in 1908 (Koninklijke Maatschappij voor Dierkunde, inv. no. CR 206). A year later the second one found its way through the Eighth Venice Biennale to the collection of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome (inv. no. 1375). The statuette in the KMSKA collection is signed as the fifth run in a series that probably consisted of 18. According to Fromanger, Bugatti donated it to the museum himself on the evidence of the statement ‘donné à Rembrandt Bugatti pour Anvers (5)’ in the production list of the Cahier Hébrard (inv. no. 1606). The sculptor, though, had another Antwerp client in mind. Small decorative animals sculptures were designed to adorn the salons of the rich bourgeoisie. In 1908 the Antwerp Zoo organised an exhibition of Bugatti’s work, and this cast may have been bought or ordered there. The zoo also bought his large version. Bugatti’s small elephant was donated to the KMSKA in 1937 by Miss Jacqueline Van den Bergh of Berchem-Antwerp, but it is not known whether she was the one who bought it at the exhibition in the zoo. Elephants often become the favourites of the public in zoos, but Miss Van den Bergh had a special relationship with this one: they were both called Jacqueline.