Dupuy Promoted Use of Art Reproductions

Victorian and Edwardian members of the middle-class substituted affordable and plentiful Parian ware for expensive marble portrait busts and statues.  Parian is a fine, matte, nearly white porcelain that originated in Britain in 1842.  It was made of kaolin, feldspar, and Cornish stone and ball-clay, then poured into plaster of Paris molds, assembled, dried, and fired.  Parian takes its name from fine-grained, semi-translucent pure-white marble found at Mount Elias on the Greek island of Paros.  The Elgin Marbles in the British Museum were carved from this stone.

Dupuy’s bust of Shakespeare is small (approximately 9” tall).  According to his obituary, he would have kept it paired with another Parian ware bust (perhaps a likeness of Charles Dickens) in his bedroom or study.

Most Parian ware was made in Britain by the firms Copeland & Garrett (Copeland & Company), Minton, and T. & R. Boote.  Wedgwood made unglazed white china marketed under the name Carrara, but commonly referred to as Parian.  A bit of Parian was produced in the United States and European countries other than Britain; for instance, Germany made Parian heads and limbs for dolls.

Parian ware was offered as busts, figures, figural groups, vases, jugs, medallions, and other decorative ornaments for the homeowner in search of a status symbol.  “While we cannot have the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Cellini, we can at least have the reproductions,” stated Louis Dupuy. 

Hotel de Paris Museum’s Parian ware and related items consist of one portrait bust of William Shakespeare and five black and white studio photographs of Parian ware statuettes or reductions, perhaps given Dupuy or left behind by a traveling salesman selling items by Copeland & Garrett.  A second portrait bust, most likely portraying a favorite author of Dupuy’s, was lost sometime after 1954, and, it is suspected a sixth photograph has also disappeared, but it is not known when.


Venus with the Apple

By 1898, Dupuy had framed in oak and displayed in his bedroom a 14” by 20” photograph of a Parian ware statuette entitled Venus with the Apple, after Bertel Thorvaldsen’s original work by the same name.  This Neoclassical image of the Goddess of Love enhanced Dupuy’s print collection of tempting female nudes.

On the Sea Shore, Storm

We do not know if the other photographs of Parian ware statuettes were exhibited by Dupuy or not.  At the very least, sometime in the early 20^th Century Hotel de Paris proprietor Sarah Burkholder displayed in Sample Room 2 a 10” by 20” framed Parian ware image of a wind-blown, barefooted girl seated on the beach, a copy after Joseph Durham’s On the Sea Shore, Storm.  Since Storm was one of a pair, it is possible Dupuy owned a complementary print titled On the Sea Shore, Calm, which depicted a seated, barefooted boy holding shells in a hat.  The placement of Storm on the left side of the fireplace mirror implies Calm may have been displayed on the right side of the mirror.

Beatrice

Currently on exhibit in Sample Room 1 are two more 10” by 20” framed photographs of Parian ware statuettes:  copies of Edgar George Papworth’s Beatrice (after Beatrice “Bice” di Folco Portinari, the inspiration for Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova and Divine Comedy) and John Gibson’s beautifully draped Roman goddess Flora, a symbol of flowers, springtime, and fertility.  An unframed 10” by 20” photograph of a Parian ware Venus de’ Medici remains in storage at Hotel de Paris Museum.

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