Unauthorized Plaster Casts at the Louvre’s Atelier de Moulage under the Direction of Eugène-Denis Arrondelle (1880–1907)

Milena Gallipoli

Abstract
This article investigates the production of plaster casts at the Atelier de Moulage du Musée du Louvre under the direction of moulder and sculptor Eugène-Denis Arrondelle between 1880 and 1907. This chef d’atelier engaged in dubious practices, producing casts to which patinas were added without authorization, or selling casts made using the resources of the Louvre workshop as products of his private studio. Some of Arrondelle’s unauthorized surmoulages could even be considered forgeries when he marketed them as direct casts of Louvre artworks. As a manufacturer of plaster casts, the Louvre thus was unwittingly exposed to competition with its own head of workshop. This case study allows us to explore the notion of authorship and authenticity in plaster casts and to highlight how commercial dynamics affected these concepts.

Introduction

[1] Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a mainly European network of private and public workshops dominated the international market for plaster casts. Among them, the state-owned Atelier de Moulage du Musée du Louvre, founded in 1794, was one of the most sought-after manufacturers. It enjoyed a privileged position thanks to both the museum’s prestige and its public funding. Over time, the workshop continuously expanded its stock of moulds and plaster models from the Louvre’s own collection and that of foreign museums: by 1928, its catalogue comprised 1,500 casts.

[2] Plaster casts enabled the serial (re)production of artworks at low prices. Their authorship was generally defined as being that of the manufacturing workshop. The usual practice was to insert a metal plaque that identified and certified the producer with its institutional designation and ensured the quality and origin of the cast. In the case of the Atelier de Moulage, the inclusion of a stamp and plaque became mandatory during the Second Empire (1852–1870).¹ At the turn of the century, it customarily contained the caption "Musée du Louvre" and a detail of laurel branches (Fig. 1). The contemporary press emphasized this distinctive feature of the Louvre workshop: "The authenticity of the provenance is guaranteed by a stamp of the Ministry of Fine Arts with the date of the edition."²

1 Atelier de Moulage du Musée du Louvre, Victory of Samothrace, plaster cast, first quarter of the twentieth century, detail of metal plaque identifying the producer. Museo de la Cárcova, Buenos Aires (photo: Milena Gallipoli)

[3] Nevertheless, these practices were far from ensuring a monopoly on official plaster casts, since the possibility of taking a mould from a cast and casting further copies (surmoulage) was constantly practiced in an increasing number of private workshops.³ Moreover, this tension between authentic plaster casts and unauthorized objects unfolded within the Atelier de Moulage itself, through the action of none other than its own chef d’atelier, Eugène-Denis Arrondelle (Paris, 1824 – Chaville, 1907), who, during his tenure as director between 1880 and 1907, engaged in questionable practices in the premises of the Louvre.

[4] This paper focuses on the internal functioning of the Atelier de Moulage under the direction of Arrondelle in order to explore the notion of authorship and authenticity in plaster casts and how commercial dynamics affected these concepts. Under Arrondelle’s direction, official plaster casts were not the only products being offered to clients. Certain casts were the result of unauthorized practices carried out by the chef – mainly the addition of patinas. Still others were sold directly under his own name instead of the Louvre’s, with Arrondelle taking advantage of the Atelier’s resources. Thus, the Atelier de Moulage faced some internal competition from its own head of workshop. Although clients were not necessarily deceived in every case, the higher authorities were aware of these practices to varying degrees and occasionally took action against them. In 1907, Arrondelle was finally dismissed from his position. Thus, a thorough distinction between the Atelier de Moulage’s products and their historical derivations shall further contribute to the current debates that aim to valorize plaster casts as works in their own right, sometimes at the expense of the appreciation of copies as direct and objective representations of an original.⁴

[5] For a few decades after the First World War, cast collections did not attract much attention. In recent times, there has been a growing interest in research into plaster cast collections, which is reflected in specialized publications taking a variety of approaches, from compilations of historical cases to the materiality of plaster and the technical production of casts.⁵ In general, studies have focused on collecting, on the underlying motives and the means of collection building, while less attention has been paid to the production dynamics within the casting workshops and the marketing. One of the main references for the Atelier de Moulage is Florence Rionnet’s 1996 monograph L’Atelier de moulage du musée du Louvre,⁶ in which she analyses the structure of the Atelier de Moulage to argue that increasing demand turned it into a commercial enterprise.⁷

[6] Rionnet has also noted that "the role of the moulders is more difficult to assess".⁸ However, documents from the French Archives Nationales and press articles enable the reconstruction of Arrondelle’s biography and his performance at the Atelier de Moulage, which I will present in the first part of this paper. The second part will address the episode in which Arrondelle was finally dismissed from the Louvre, analysing the discourse generated by the authorities to accuse the chef of the state-funded institution. Together with a number of documents from international clients—with a particular focus on Argentinian collections—the archival material proves that the accusations did indeed reflect a regular occurrence in this workshop.

Eugène-Denis Arrondelle: sculpteur, mouleur, chef d’atelier

[7] Eugène-Denis Arrondelle was born in Paris on January 21, 1824. Little is known about his biography: Nicole Garcia tracked some details about his life and his stay in Chaville during his final years,⁹ while Rionnet describes him as a "figure who undoubtedly enjoyed a certain notoriety in artistic circles as a 'recognized' sculptor and especially as the inventor of the staff", a particular plaster moulding technique.¹⁰ A first-person account appeared in 1901, when the journal Le Petit Parisien published an interview with Arrondelle—seventy-seven years old at the time—as part of a brief series called "Les doyens du travail" by a reporter named Pontarmé. These articles were dedicated to specialized workers who had "arrived at the extreme limits of age", in order to know "what they thought about the career they had followed and about the new needs which made the existence of workers less happy today".¹¹

[8] The interview featured a portrait that represents Arrondelle with the typical white apron worn by mouleurs, followed by a caption that defined him as a sculpteur (Fig. 2). It is worth noting that throughout the interview, Arrondelle’s occupations appear almost as opposites; there is a tension between his sense of belonging to the artistic field of sculptors and his work as a moulder to earn a living—in short, a tension between artist and artisan. Even though the aim of the article was to feature craftsmen and workers, Arrondelle seized the opportunity to present himself as an artist, and he was even introduced as "a philosopher and a mind open to the speculations of art".¹² Nevertheless, his career as a moulder prevailed: "The casts soon took up all my time. How could I daydream about art fantasies in the presence of life’s necessities? I had no choice in my career. It imposed itself."¹³

2 Eugène Arrondelle, sculpteur, in: Pontarmé, "Les doyens du travail", in: Le Petit Parisien (December 4, 1901), p. 1

[9] His story emphasized a humble origin and harsh beginnings: he was the son of a bootmaker (bottier) who had lost everything to gambling by 1830 and left for England. His mother was from Saint-Dizier and sold vegetables at Les Halles in Paris to make ends meet. Despite that, he had managed to begin his artistic training at the École des Beaux-Arts, being a student of the painter Hippolyte Flandrin (Lyon, 1809 – Rome, 1864) and even boasted that some of his drawings had been corrected by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (Montauban, 1780 – Paris, 1867) in person.¹⁴

[10] According to Garcia and Rionnet, Arrondelle exhibited a number of busts and medallions at several Salons:¹⁵ Portrait de M^me Arrondelle (1885, n. 3299, bronze medallion), Portrait (1890, n. 3462, silver-plated bronze medallion),¹⁶ Bacchante (1892, n. 2227, marble bust),¹⁷Mme  Satan (1893, n. 2507, marble bust), and Énigme (1898, n. 3107, marble bust)—the last was praised as "very beautiful" in a brief critique.¹⁸ While his fame as a sculptor was rather insignificant in Paris, he enjoyed a higher renown in Saint-Dizier, his mother’s birthplace. There, he exhibited a terracotta Bacchante,¹⁹ donated a version to the Musée de Saint-Dizier,²⁰ and was praised in the local press as "an emeritus artist, with proven talent, endowed with a delicate taste united with a perfect knowledge of ancient art and everything that relates to it"²¹.

[11] Regarding certain international collectors, Rionnet remarks that George Vanderbilt (1862–1914) acquired some sculptures authored by Arrondelle for the Biltmore Estate (Asheville, NC, United States).²² One of the few sculptures from Arrondelle’s hand that can be found in online databases belongs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC (Fig. 3). According to the museum catalogue entry, the painted terracotta probably represents the mythological goddess Erato, given that she is usually depicted with a lyre, an element here carved on the front of the figure’s crown.²³ This bust offers a sample of Arrondelle’s own style, aligning with the features of French Salon sculpture of the period.²⁴

3 Eugène-Denis Arrondelle, Erato (?), 1896, cast, painted and patined terracotta on marble base, 52 × 30 × 28,5 cm. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney, 1968.159.302 (photo: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC)

[12] Apart from these few episodes as a sculptor, however, Arrondelle’s professional development and success were mainly as a mouleur. Early on in his life, he entered the Atelier de Moulage as an apprentice under the direction of François-Henri Jacquet (1818–1848).²⁵ Arrondelle considered him "a good master", but he did not earn any salary during that time and "life was hard".²⁶ Between the years under Antoine-Louis Barye’s direction (1848–1850) and his own appointment as chef d’atelier in 1880, his position at the Atelier de Moulage is unclear.

[13] In this period, Arrondelle undertook a series of unspecified works of architectural plaster decoration, mainly in theatres.²⁷ These included, for example, the decoration of the dome of the Théâtre-Lyrique.²⁸ In 1849, he was involved in the decoration of the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre, which included the restoration of the ornamental figures on the ceiling.²⁹ In 1854, he embarked for England and worked as a foreman in the Fine Art Department of the Sydenham Crystal Palace, in the section of foreign collections, under the general superintendent Alexandre Desachy from Paris.³⁰ He later described his own job in the aforementioned interview as successfully managing 150 workers and "maintain[ing] the good reputation of French art among our neighbors".³¹ On his business stationery, which he used for a letter to the Argentinian painter Eduardo Schiaffino in 1906, for example, his Sydenham experience is marketed as follows: "one million works executed by one hundred French sculptors and moulders and supervised by myself" (Fig. 4).³²

4 Eugène-Denis Arrondelle, letter on printed stationery to Eduardo Schiaffino, August 20, 1906. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Fondo Schiaffino (photo: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires)

[14] Finally, another significant achievement of Arrondelle’s career as mouleur—or sculpteur-décorateur, as he decided to call himself on his stationary—was the invention of a casting procedure called moulage du staff or mousselino-plastie. The staff refers to a cast that was reinforced with pieces of canvas. In this process, the pieces of fabric were applied to the Plaster of Paris with a brush so that they could adapt to any shape of the mould.³³ The product was extremely light whilst retaining its strength, a feature that had a"most useful application for architectural decorations, reducing the usual weight to about one tenth and retaining the advantages of solidity and purity of plaster casts."³⁴

[15] Nevertheless, the invention of the staff has also been attributed to Desachy, Arrondelle’s supervisor at the Sydenham Crystal Palace and mouleur of the École des Beaux-Arts. In this regard, Rionnet argues that the procedure could have been born around 1850 as a joint effort;³⁵ after all, they were in-laws—Arrondelle married Josephine Théodorine Desachy in May 1851³⁶ —and he later referred to himself as the successor to the Ancienne Maison Desachy.³⁷ It seems that they developed the technique while working at the Crystal Palace: Desachy applied for a patent in England in 1856;³⁸ Arrondelle was able to do the same in France the following year.³⁹ However, as Christiane Pinatel argues, in the end, the former managed to secure a "monopoly" on the staff for the École, along with sales outlets in Paris, London, and Brussels.⁴⁰ In Arrondelle’s interview in 1901, he claimed to have invented the staff with no mention of Desachy, while stating that "all my colleagues have benefited from it. Me, I stayed poor."⁴¹

Authorship and plaster casts at the Atelier de Moulage under Arrondelle’s direction

[16] Arrondelle became chef d’atelier of the Atelier de Moulage du Musée du Louvre in 1880. He ran the workshop for almost three decades, until 1907, when he was dismissed for mishandling its administration and undermining higher levels of authority.

[17] The Atelier de Moulage was overseen by the Ministère de l’Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts,⁴² operating more specifically under the administrative control of a Secrétaire Agent Comptable des Musées and the artistic supervision of the Louvre’s Conservateur des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines. Inside the workshop, the chef d’atelier ran the daily operations and oversaw an average of eleven mouleurs. Operating the Atelier de Moulage was no easy task. Previous chefs such as François-Henri Jacquet (between 1818–1848) and Pierre-Laurent Micheli (1850–1854) had been dismissed on the grounds that they had abused their power by exceeding the tasks assigned to them and by embezzling funds. An official regulation of 1854 increased control over these technical supervisors and, according to Rionnet, the position therefore lost the "aura" it had once enjoyed.⁴³ Although its administrative structure implied multiple levels of control, there was, in fact, a lack of surveillance over what happened at the Atelier de Moulage. Some documents noted that the chef’s responsibilities were imprecise,⁴⁴ while one letter from the time explicitly stated: "for casts, control is far from being easy, we can even say it is impossible".⁴⁵

[18] The affaire Arrondelle, as Rionnet calls it,⁴⁶ was triggered in 1888 by an anonymous letter, signed by "un artiste", to the Ministre de l’Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts. It alleged that an improper situation was taking place:

In special apartments, there are stamped figures ("Moulage Artistique E.A."), which are sold at higher prices than those listed in the Administration’s catalogue. I also learned that these plaster casts came from outside, which was confirmed to me by the following: When I left the Museum, a carriage […] was stationed in front of the Museum loaded with different figurines, these were brought in through the Pavillon Daru [part of Napoleon III’s Louvre expansion] and from there exhibited to the public.⁴⁷

Thus, in the sales rooms of the Atelier de Moulage, casts from the "Musée du Louvre"were offered alongside other plasters from the mysterious "Moulage Artistique E.A.". The initials referred to none other than Eugène Arrondelle; this implies that he promoted and sold plaster casts from his own production or, as Rionnet defines it, "a personal collection", in the same space where he was formally employed.⁴⁸

[19] For our purposes, it is important to note that these accusations can be independently confirmed thanks to the existence of material evidence and a number of written sources. The first document in question is the 1901 interview in Le Petit Parisien. The Atelier de Moulage’s premises were, in fact, the setting for this conversation, described by the interviewer as "indeed one of the most fantastic places in Paris that the crowd does not know".⁴⁹ According to Pontarmé it was "inhabited by hunting Dianas, Antinouses, Herculeses, Fauns and Victories of Samothrace".⁵⁰ From there, he was conducted to another "very cluttered" room "where busts of Coysevox, Caffiéri, and Houdon are displayed, mingled with graceful Tanagras and delicate Renaissance figurines".⁵¹ Up to that point, most of the objects mentioned were plaster casts of artworks in the Louvre, but then another figure—"enigmatic", "very modern", and "very well known"—caught Pontarmé’s eye: a bust of the famous dancer Cléo de Mérode (b. 1875), a reduction of a work Arrondelle had exhibited at the Salon of 1898. And from that point onward, the description reveals a display of Arrondelle’s sculptures:

This is not the only work by the sculptor to be found in these stores. There is an Amphitrite, a Bacchante and a Saint Cecilia, which also bear his signature. He shows me, relegated to a corner, a figure of a female Faun with a sardonic laugh. "Another of my sins; a portrait. I have called her Madame Satan […]." Further on, an unfinished Knight of Spring, perhaps intended for the next Salon, stands next to a delightful little Saint John that M. Arrondelle has sculpted after the Mino da Fiesole which is in the Louvre. A masterful portrait of the artist, a terracotta by Suchetet, accompanies these works.⁵²

Perhaps this display of his own artistic works was a special setup on the occasion of the interview. Even so, it is still noteworthy that the venue was portrayed as Arrondelle’s atelier rather than the plaster casting workshop of the Louvre.

[20] Moreover, when looking at records of Arrondelle’s address, by 1896 the sculpteur and chef du moulage au Musée du Louvre was located at 2, rue du Louvre, meters away from the Atelier de Moulage.⁵³ Such close proximity would have allowed for easy transportation of objects—the anonymous accuser had witnessed the introduction of pieces from outside into the Louvre—and provided ideal circumstances for finding clients. Whenever someone visited the Louvre to place an order for plaster casts, it would have been possible to push Arrondelle’s products. Moreover, years after Arrondelle’s death, the site continued functioning as sales premises for objets d’art and reductions after the antique under the name of H. Angeli, Ancienne Maison Arrondelle (Fig. 5).

5 Advertisement by Ancienne Maison Arrondelle, H. Angeli succ[esseu]r, in: Annuaire de la curiosité et des beaux-arts. Paris, départements, étranger, Paris: Librairies-Imprimeries réunies, 1920, p. 263

[21] In terms of material evidence, two objects related to Arrondelle have been identified in artistic collections. The first one is an écorché of a standing male figure, registered as a donation from Swedish painter Julius Kronberg (1850–1921) to the Nordiska Museet, Oslo (Fig. 6). The plaster, with unhidden joins that reveal the different parts of the mould, contains the legend of "Moulage Artistique E.A.", the same inscription to which the anonymous accusation referred in 1888.

6 Eugène-Denis Arrondelle (attr.), Study model, plaster, 50 × 13,5 cm, stamped "Moulage artistique EA". Nordiska Museet, Oslo, SKANM.0139529 (photo: Tomas Wiedersheim-Paul / Skansen)

[22] The second object belongs to the plaster cast collection of the Universidad de Costa Rica. It was acquired in 1897 for the newly created Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in San José, directed by Spanish artist Tomás Povedano de Arcos (Lucena, 1847 – San José, 1943). A female figure, identified as the muse Polyhymnia, has a metal plaque reading "Collection particulière / Arrondelle / 2, rue du Louvre / Paris" (Figs. 7 and 8).⁵⁴ The inscription explicitly states the authorship of Arrondelle and distinguishes him from the Atelier de Moulage by giving his personal address.

7 Eugène-Denis Arrondelle, Polyhymnia, before 1897, plaster, 77 × 20 × 36 cm. Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Colección Histórica de Yesos, E 10 (photo: Natalia Cordero Villalobos)

8 Eugène-Denis Arrondelle, Polyhymnia (as Fig. 7), detail of the metal plaque inserted into the base: "Collection particulière / Arrondelle / 2, rue du Louvre / Paris". Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Colección Histórica de Yesos, E 10 (reprod. from: Brizuela [2014], 101)

However, unlike the sculptures named by Pontarmé that were original designs by Arrondelle as an artist, and unlike the écorché that is a general type, the Polyhymnia is a reduced copy of a Roman marble statue in the Louvre collection.⁵⁵ Moreover, the Atelier de Moulage sold both full-size and reduced casts of the sculpture,⁵⁶ which leads to the conclusion that, in this case, although the client was aware of purchasing an Arrondelle, the latter’s product was competing against the Louvre’s profits.

[23] There is a further indication that clients were conscious of the subtle yet crucial difference in authorship between a cast from the Louvre and another from Arrondelle. Argentine painter Ernesto de la Cárcova (Buenos Aires, 1866–1927) was commissioned to purchase a collection of plaster casts for the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1906. According to some informal accounting records, he listed a purchase from the Louvre amounting to 1,288.75 francs. However, the list also itemized a purchase directly from Arrondelle "por calcos" for 186.40 francs.⁵⁷ In this case, even though it is not exactly clear which casts were purchased under the respective expenditure line, both authorships are recorded—hence they were neither confused nor obscured.

[24] Let us now return to the question of how the Atelier de Moulage’s higher administration dealt with the anonymous 1888 accusation. The Louvre classified the matter as confidential⁵⁸ and did not conduct an investigation, but acknowledged and approved Arrondelle’s practices. A rather unusual response from the conservateur of the Musée de la Marine attributed the letter to a pouting homme de service and argued that the "Moulage artistique E.A." casts had never been sold to the public nor exhibited under the pretense of being from the Louvre, since they belonged to Arrondelle’s collection. He then explained that there was an agreement which authorized Arrondelle to market some of his figures and reductions, as long as they were not mixed with the plaster casts from the Atelier de Moulage. He concluded: "any confusion would be, moreover, impossible because of the size of the Arrondelle plasters and the special stamp".⁵⁹ Following this expert’s interpretation, the écorché would have been one of the "models from this [i.e., Arrondelle’s] collection [that] are often demanded by drawing schools",⁶⁰ because it had the metal plaque that clearly set it apart from the Atelier de Moulage’s products. The coexistence between the Louvre and the Arrondelle plaster casts continued for almost two more decades, despite new allegations that clients were also misled. For instance, a note from 1894 reported that the chef d’atelier was producing Tanagra figurines on his behalf and that "several people came to tell me that they had bought ambiguous models with the firm conviction that it was the museum that sold them".⁶¹

[25] Arrondelle’s tenure coincided with an increasing demand for plaster casts, whether for Universal Exhibitions, national institutions such as universities,⁶² or the creation of new artistic collections in international cities. The customer lists compiled by Rionnet provide an insight into the demand for plasters from the Atelier de Moulage. It is interesting to note that, for the period under Arrondelle, sales to institutions were only recorded in the years 1880, 1883, 1884, 1902, and 1907.⁶³ The following reason might explain the lack of control over Arrondelle over such a long period: a disconnect between the daily practice of the Atelier de Moulage, which dealt with private clients, and the higher administration, which handled institutional and official requests.⁶⁴ This is well illustrated by a minute concerning a request for a plaster cast of the Winged Victory of Samothrace for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The order met with hesitation because

the staff of our Atelier de Moulage is barely sufficient to carry out the orders placed by private individuals, schools, and French and foreign museums. These orders are sometimes put off for a long time because our workers are often busy making casts that you allocate to public institutions.⁶⁵

As the ministry requested plaster casts as gifts or loans to public institutions (or for events such as world’s fairs), Arrondelle withheld information about private orders. Under these circumstances, Arrondelle had, as Rionnet states, "metamorphosed into a veritable 'organizer' of the supply, manufacturing and distribution[…] profiting from the 'illicit' trade in reductions and patinated plaster casts".⁶⁶ In 1907, the Louvre finally decided to act against Arrondelle and remove him from his position.

[26] This process coincided with the archaeologist and philologist Théophile Homolle (Paris, 1848–1925) leading the Musées Nationaux (1904–1911).⁶⁷ According to a report, he intended to reform the Atelier de Moulage’s organization and administrative procedures to improve its functioning and and earn it the prestige it deserved:

The Atelier de Moulage is far from obtaining and deserving the praise accorded [illegible] to that of the chalcography. The collection of moulds—which is entirely rich in pieces from our own museum, many from other galleries and monuments from France and abroad, which includes some very important pieces whose originals have sometimes disappeared, and which has been further enhanced by the considerable funds donated by the Société des Arts Décoratifs—is, for the most part, piled up in basements; has never been classified, arranged or even inventoried in its entirety; there is no complete catalogue; and no one knows the number, nor the extent, nor even less the subject of all the moulds we possess.⁶⁸

[27] Homolle considered the organization of the production of plaster casts at the Musée de Sculpture Comparée du Trocadéro as a model to follow because it relegated the work to a third party:

At the Trocadéro, Mr. Enlart works to his satisfaction with independent contractors. I asked him to send me the specifications of the Trocadéro’s contractor, Mr. Pouzadoux, who is a highly skilled moulder and with whom he is very satisfied.⁶⁹

Yet he also recognized the difficulty of applying such radical reforms to the Louvre given the type of workers it employed and its abundant and varied cast production.

[28] Regarding Arrondelle, no concessions were made to the old chef d’atelier, who by then was eighty-three years old and would die that same year. The apologetic attitude that had once overlooked his business practices turned into outright condemnation: "Because, in short, the poor functioning of the workshop is simply the consequence of the favourable situation accorded to M. Arrondelle." However, the same letter also acknowledged that it was the complete lack of control and surveillance that had enabled him to profit from the Atelier. It concluded that a reform and reorganization of the institution were the best directions to follow.⁷⁰

[29] The accusations against Arrondelle during the years of Homolle’s management were made in a series of reports drawn up by higher levels of the administration responsible for the Atelier de Moulage. In addition to the charge of selling his own casts, Arrondelle was held accountable for delays in deliveries; broken and misclassified moulds in the workshop;⁷¹ free usage of materials and labour hours of his employees for his personal benefit; the addition of unauthorized patinas to casts of Louvre artworks; and the direct, personal management of sales records and correspondence with customers.⁷²

[30] In light of these new accusations, it is worth taking a look at another Argentinian case to assess Arrondelle’s management. As mentioned above, the director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, painter Eduardo Schiaffino (1858–1935), bought a collection of plaster casts from the Atelier de Moulage in 1905–1906.⁷³ On this occasion, although no casts from Arrondelle were registered, several of his alleged misconducts can be detected. Arrondelle personally carried out all negotiations and communications with Schiaffino. This could explain why there is no official invoice from the Atelier de Moulage in Argentinian archives and why no documents from this exchange can be found in the French Archives Nationales. Accordingly, Rionnet’s annexes do not mention any Argentinian client of the Louvre. Arrondelle arranged visits to the Atelier de Moulage through personal correspondence; his letterhead indicated that he was both chef des ateliers and préposé à la vente (Fig. 9).⁷⁴

9 Letterhead from the personal stationery of Eugène-Denis Arrondelle, 1906; detail of Fig. 4.

[31] The most questionable aspect of this encounter was that several casts were offered with special patinas—along with corresponding surcharges. Schiaffino received a typed list of casts and a note in Arrondelle’s handwriting stating:

The repair and the patina like the original will increase the plaster by 30% over the full price of the catalogue; that being so

Order of Antiques 6.586, patina 30% 1.975

Order of Moderns 7.582, patina 30% 2.275

[Total] 4.249.⁷⁵

In the end, Schiaffino selected several plaster casts with patina and proudly displayed them at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. These included, for example, a copy of the Delphi Charioteer, which featured a patina that imitated the bronze original (Fig. 10).⁷⁶

10 Exhibition room in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires (detail), single photograph, labeled on the back as "Sala del museo en su primera época", ca. 1907. Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, C 2059, inv. 044227 (photo: Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires)

[32] Regardless of Schiaffino’s awareness or ignorance regarding the Atelier de Moulage’s internal affairs, it can be argued that some of the plaster casts that he bought for Buenos Aires were manufactured under 'illicit' circumstances. A cast such as the Delphi Charioteer was something between an official copy and a fake: The Atelier de Moulage was the author of the object that came out of the mould and it was offered in its official sales catalogue. Arrondelle, however, added the patina according to his own choice and judgement.—As will be explained below, patinas were not officially allowed to be added to the Louvre casts at this time. —The final piece was given the metal plaque of the Louvre. Some authors have considered the patina to be the most authentic and original feature of a plaster cast.⁷⁷ Yet in this case, the patina resulted from an unauthorized and potentially fraudulent practice. Arrondelle chose not to put his trade mark, presumably to discreetly profit from a small percentage of the selling price. However, it is not possible to determine whether he kept only the profit from the patination or from the entire sale.

[33] While other French workshops, such as that of the Musée de Sculpture Comparée, favoured the use of patinas in this period,⁷⁸ they were not applied to the Louvre casts: "Under the terms of the regulations, the Atelier de Moulage must deliver the plaster casts it manufactures as they are extracted from the moulds, i.e. white and with all their joints [coutures]", wrote the Directeur des Musées Nationaux et de l’École du Louvre in September 1907.⁷⁹ Hence, whenever Arrondelle added a patina, he was selling an exclusive product for a demand that the Atelier de Moulage was not allowed to meet. Only by the end of 1907—after Arrondelle’s exit—, the administration finally authorized the application of patinas for an extra charge, and it was acknowledged that such pieces had an attractive market and were potentially profitable.⁸⁰ In this regard, Arrondelle’s dismissal can be interpreted as an opportunity for the Atelier de Moulage to rethink its role as a sales agent and update its products in order to keep up with a changing demand and clientele. The adjustments went beyond the addition of patinas and included an enlarged offer of reductions and fragments of sculptures.

[34] Additionally, a plan was set out to reorganize the Atelier de Moulage under the supervision of a new directeur technique, Eugène Legrain (1837–1915).⁸¹ When evaluating the Atelier, Legrain expressed extremely harsh criticism of its state of affairs: "For many years I have heard […] that the casts from the Louvre Museum are mediocre and often even less so. I must admit myself that this severity is only deserved."⁸² He was charged with the following tasks: (1) reorganising and classifying the moulds through an inventory; (2) revising the state of the plaster casts, repairing used moulds, and manufacturing new épreuves; (3) setting up an exhibition of models in a salesroom open to the public; and (4) executing casts with patinas and reductions.⁸³ However, Legrain stepped down after one year, despite an increase in sales.⁸⁴ The mouleur Vicenti replaced him as chef d’atelier between 1908 and 1911, followed by Émile Laffont; both had already been employees of the Atelier de Moulage.

Conclusions

[35] This paper focused on the production and sale of plaster casts at the Atelier de Moulage under the direction of Arrondelle. The aim was to analyse and distinguish the official products and practices from those that were not authorised. For decades, the Louvre and the higher administration exercised little control over what went on at the Atelier de Moulage. As a result, its chef d’atelier enjoyed a level of autonomy that allowed him to deal directly with clients and also to sell his own sculptures or services. By using official documents from the Atelier de Moulage in combination with external sources, I was able to reconstruct how Arrondelle acted at the Atelier de Moulage. Sales to Buenos Aires served me as a case study of Arrondelle’s protracted and deceitful administration, in which he acted as a skilful dealer who knew how to place his products and gain a personal advantage at the expense of the Louvre. The use of Argentine sources as historical evidence also revealed that the institutional archives of the Atelier de Moulage must be complemented with other documents, as the documentation in the former is not complete and does not provide a full panorama of the Louvre’s clients in the period under study. Indeed, as demonstrated above, this gap has arisen precisely because Arrondelle personally oversaw much of the bookkeeping.

[36] It can be said that Arrondelle unofficially competed with the Atelier de Moulage. I identified the coexistence of three different types of plaster casts: the 'authentic', official casts from the Atelier de Moulage; official casts with unauthorized patinas; and casts of the artist Arrondelle’s own sculptures. Across all three categories, one feature remained constant: all the casts were marked with metal plaques indicating either the Louvre or Arrondelle’s private studio as the manufacturer.

[37] Despite accusations of clients being deceived, they were generally aware of the difference between a plaster cast from the Atelier de Moulage and another from Arrondelle. Firstly, the metal plaque on the sculptures themselves provided unambiguity; secondly, this becomes evident from the clients’ distinction in their own records. However, some products crossed the line into deception, such as a patina on a cast that was supposed to be white, or the offer of a cast with Arrondelle’s tag when it was also for sale by the Atelier de Moulage. From the point of view of the administration of the Atelier de Moulage, there was a shift from condoning to condemning Arrondelle’s practices over the course of two decades.

[38] The case study of Arrondelle’s production of plaster casts can reveal how different features and historical circumstances can determine whether certain casts were official or unauthorized copies. From a philosophical point of view, Nelson Goodman has defined a forgery as "an object falsely purporting to have the history of production requisite for the (or an) original of the work".⁸⁵ Under such a definition, it could be argued that Arrondelle falsely implied that some of his products had the same "history of production" as those of the Louvre. Some plasters from Arrondelle were sold under fraudulent circumstances insofar as he took advantage of the Louvre’s market conditions. Deceit was placed upon the consumer, while affecting the Louvre’s market position as producer. Within this market for multiples, authorship was not being altered in the final product; rather, manipulation occurred in terms of who could exploit, and profit from, the right of reproduction.

Acknowledgements
The investigations for this article were made possible by a research fellowship at the Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte Paris (DFK Paris), which enabled the work at the Archives Nationales de France, and a doctoral scholarship from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET Argentina). In 2021, a preliminary version of this article was presented at the workshop "Fakes in the art market", organized by the University of Bologna Institute of Advanced Studies (ISA). I would especially like to thank Prof. Laura Malosetti Costa and Prof. Carolina Vanegas Carrasco for their careful reading and their kind remarks, and the reviewers and editors of RIHA Journal for their comments and editing.

Reviewers
Anonymous

Local Editor
Delphine Wanes, Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), Paris

License
The text of this article is provided under the terms of the Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0