Constantin Ganesco (1864–1951) — Bronze Calvary, Cire Perdue, A.A. Hébrard, Paris

A finely modelled interwar bronze Calvary (crucifix) by the Romanian painter and sculptor Constantin Ganesco (1864–1951), cast in lost wax (cire perdue) by the celebrated Parisian foundry of A.A. Hébrard and bearing its stamped founder’s cachet, Cire Perdue A.A. Hébrard, together with the artist’s signature integral to the cast.

At the centre, the crucified Christ; the arms and shaft are worked in relief with scenes from the Passion, with mourning figures at the foot. The treatment is deliberately archaic — a Byzantine-Romanesque idiom Ganesco made his own — and the surface retains the rich, buried-and-repatinated patina characteristic of the Hébrard workshop. The reverse is hollow-cast with its integral suspension loop.

Ganesco moved in the Paris circle of Auguste Rodin and is represented in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Rodin. In 1918 he exhibited a group of bronze Calvaires at the Galerie de la Fonderie Hébrard in Paris; this Ganesco Hébrard crucifix belongs to that documented body of religious work, placing the cast in the interwar period before the foundry’s closure.

Bronze, lost-wax cast (cire perdue), A.A. Hébrard, Paris. Circa 1918–1930s. Stamped foundry cachet and artist’s signature. 39 × 26 cm.