“The Great Warrior of Montauban” by Antoine Bourdelle

“The Great Warrior of Montauban” by Antoine Bourdelle was commissioned in 1897, by the village of Montauban to commemorate the Franco-Prussian War.

Often referred to in France as the War of 1870, it was a conflict between France and the German states led by the Kingdom of Prussia.

The battle was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and the French fears of the shift in the European balance of power.

Antoine Bourdelle was an influential and prolific French sculptor, painter, and teacher.

He became one of the pioneers of 20th-century monumental sculpture, and Auguste Rodin became a great admirer of his work, and in 1893 Bourdelle joined Rodin as his assistant.

He became a favorite teacher, and many future prominent artists attended his classes, and thus his influence on sculpture was considerable.

The Great Warrior of Montauban

• Title:              The Great Warrior of Montauban
• Artist:            Antoine Bourdelle
• Year:              Modelled in 1898 to 1900; cast in 1956
• Material:        Bronze Casting
• Dimensions:  73 1/4 × 62 × 24 1/8 in. (186 × 157.2 × 61.3 cm)
• Museum:       Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Antoine Bourdelle

• Name:       Antoine Bourdelle
• Born:         Émile Antoine Bordelles
• Born:         1861 – Montauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, France
• Died:         1929 – Le Vésinet, near Paris
• Notable Works:
  • The Great Warrior of Montauban
  • Hercules the Archer
  • Adam

Antoine Bourdelle

A Tour of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

• “The Burghers of Calais” by Auguste Rodin
• “Kiepenkerl” by Jeff Koons
• “The Figure” by Jacques Lipchitz
• “The Great Warrior of Montauban” by Antoine Bourdelle

Bourdelle Museum

A Tour of American Museums

• New York Museums
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art or MET
  • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
  • Intrepid, Sea, Air & Space Museum
  • Neue Galerie New York
  • The Cloisters
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
  • American Museum of Natural History
  • Museum of the City of New York
  • New-York Historical Society
  • Frick Collection
  • Met Breuer

• Washington, D.C. Museums
  • National Gallery of Art
  • National Museum of American History
  • National Air and Space Museum
  • National Museum of African American History and Culture
  • National Museum of Natural History
  • National Portrait Gallery
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum
  • The Phillips Collection
  • Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
  • International Spy Museum

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“I invent nothing, I rediscover.”
– Auguste Rodin

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Photo Credit: Antoine Bourdelle [CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons