Félix Marcilhac,  Sandoz sculpteur figuriste et animalier, éditions de l’amateur, Paris 1993, pages 446 and 447, n° 1127.
 

Zermatt stone in direct carving, signed "Ed.M Sandoz", unique piece.
Circa 1927

Edouard-Marcel Sandoz was born in Basel (Switzerland) on the 21st of March 1881. His work of sculptor of men and animals numbers around 2000 pieces among which 200 porcelain sculptures. A self-taught artist, he expressed himself in bronze as in ceramics, in direct carving as well as in the painting of flowers and landscapes.
Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris as from 1905, he attended the classes of the sculptor Antonin Mercié and of the painter Ferdinand Cormon.

Inspired by Art Nouveau and its flexible and harmonious lines, from 1920 onwards, he began to concentrate on animal study, styling its volumes with a neat and sharp-edged cutting technique.  Attracted by direct carving, he most liked to work on the effects of the veining in the stone so as to give its patterns colour and relief, as can be seen in this pair of parakeets, carved in the blue green shades of the Zermatt stone. This unique piece of Sandoz's work, known until now only from family photo archives, has just been rediscovered.  

The preponderance of animal representation in his work led him to create the Société Française des Animaliers in 1933. Highly committed to his fellow artists, he presided, for twenty years, the Fondation Taylor. Sandoz, who regularly took part in the arts-events of his time, displayed his artworks at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, in 1947. After becoming a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de l'Institut de France, and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, he was awarded an hononary doctorate by the Lausanne University in 1959.