MARCH 14 – 19,  2026 

TEFAF, synonymous with excellence, is undoubtedly one of the most significant events in a gallery’s annual calendar. We prepare for it with the utmost seriousness and carefully select our finest sculptures for the event, most of which are being shown for the first time. This year is exceptional, with a selection of numerous important pieces, including an extraordinary Christofle tableware set, a true masterpiece of the decorative arts.

We present an aluminum bronze by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875), with a prestigious provenance, having belonged to Empress Eugénie, cast by Paul Morin, of which only two examples exist. This is the statuette of the Prince Imperial and his dog Nero (1865), a moving testament to the childhood of Napoleon III’s son. Another portrait from the Second Empire is the striking Portrait of Auguste Luchet (1805-1872) by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824-1887), an original, unique terracotta piece that pays homage to this man of letters and socialist and his eventful career. From the end of the 19th century, we can highlight The Golden Belt (1874) by Charles Adrien Prosper d’Épinay (1836-1914), of which the marble model caused a sensation at the Salon of 1874. Our model is a bronze cast by Nelli in Rome around 1880, whose international reputation led him to work for the greatest sculptors of the time but also for the Opéra Garnier and the Louvre.

By Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), we are exhibiting a bust of Balzac, study of nude C with shoulders and rounded chest (reduction), a bronze that retains only the essential details intended to express the novelist’s creative power: the bull neck, the lion’s mane, the large, ironic and sensual mouth, and above all, the eyes, those fiery eyes that so captivated the writer’s contemporaries. By one of his collaborators, Louis Dejean (1872-1953), we are presenting The Passions Rising Towards the Muses, arrangements of magnificent bronze figures cast by Alexis Rudier, whose tumultuous bodies are reminiscent of The Gates of Hell. Another follower of Rodin who also became famous was Émile Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929), represented here by Madame Lion as the Queen of Sheba, of which Rhodia Dufet-Bourdelle, the sculptor’s daughter, said that it possessed “the majesty of a cathedral figure, so manifest is its synthesis of forms and sense of architectural balance.” From this same period, we are fortunate to present a rare group of five sculptures by Victor Segoffin (1867-1925) spanning the years 1892 to 1903, including a unique master-model: Evil Genius (1892), A Wreck (1898), The Suppliant (1899), Nude Woman (1900), and Sacred Dance (1903); all works representative of his art, revealed together to the public for the first time. Animal sculptors are themselves magnificently represented. Certainly the greatest among them, Rembrandt Bugatti (1884-1916) appears here with a powerfully intense drawing, Self-Portrait, and a bronze, Marabou Stork at Rest (1907), to which the sculptor readily compared himself when he declared, “I look much like an old marabou stork.” Only ten copies of this model, produced by Hébrard, the artist’s exclusive agent, between 1913 and 1934, have been recorded. Our bronze, number 3, is therefore among the very first and, according to family records, was acquired directly from the foundry in 1922. Another very important artist, Édouard-Marcel Sandoz (1881-1971), surprises us once again with this unique piece carved directly in olive wood, Genet and Snake. This work was previously known only through photographic family archives. It is therefore a fundamental discovery of the sculptor’s art. The sculptural treatment combines areas of very fine carving — notably the head, muzzle, ears, and paws of the genet—with deliberately rougher sections, where the natural texture of the wood remains visible and serves to define the fur and skin of the two antagonists. We should also mention the noble Male Panther by Georges Hilbert (1900-1982), carved from a type of Belgian granite marble, which evokes the purity and simplicity of Egyptian animal sculpture. I cannot conclude this partial list without mentioning, in closing, the admirable Christofle garniture by Émile Reiber (1826-1893), the designer we have chosen to present specially for TEFAF. It comprises a cachepot and two vases decorated with wisteria and acacia on a red background. According to the archives, the cachepot was created for the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair, while the vases were created in 1874 for the UCAD (Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs) central exhibition that year in Paris, where they were presented with the cachepot; the set was then exhibited at the 1878 and 1889 Paris World’s Fairs. These cloisonné enamel pieces, expensive and complex to produce, were rarely manufactured in large quantities. Our set is, in fact, a rare and striking testament to the excellence achieved by industrial progress in late 19th-century France.

I hope I have inspired you to visit our stand, where I look forward to seeing many of you, as every year.  Nicolas Bourriaud