ARTHUR WAAGEN | KABYLE AU RETOUR DE LA CHASSE (THE BERBER HUNTER)

This noble and Romantic depiction of a Berber tribesman from the mountain regions of North Africa shows the subject returning to the village with his dogs and a rescued lamb, while in his outstretched hand he holds up the predator's hide. The present, magnificent, bronze is of the rare largest size of the model cast by Waagen. 

Born in the Baltic port of Memel, East Prussia (now Klaipeda, Lithuania), Max Arthur Waagen was one of many German artists of Baltic extraction who left their homes to pursue careers abroad. Waagen moved to Paris, where he appears to have permanently settled, for his extant works bear exclusively French names and were cast there. The Livrets de Salon reveal that he exhibited at the Paris Salon between 1861 and 1887 and that his studio was located at Cours-de-Vincennes, 40 and later avenue Chevalier, 11. The Kabyle au retour de la chasse is the sculptor's defining model. Another cast of the model is in the Dahesh Museum, New York, whilst a cast with the same base as the present bronze is published by Payne (op. cit.). A cast is known to have been owned by the Rockefeller family; given the prestige of the current bronze, with its elaborate base, it is possible it could be identified as the Rockefeller cast.

RELATED LITERATURE

C. Payne, Animals in Bronze, Reference and Price Guide, Woodbridge, 1986, pp. 284-285; P. Kjellberg, Bronzes of the Nineteenth Century; Dictionary of Sculptors, Atglen, 1994, p. 647