Ref.15269
Émile HÉBERT, The Champion, circa 1890

The Champion was created by Émile Hébert around 1890. The sculptor Émile Hébert (Paris, 1828-1893) first learned sculpture from his father, Pierre Hébert (1804-1869), and then from Jean-Jacques Feuchère (1807-1852). He participated in the Salons, where he was particularly noticed in 1859, and in the World's Fairs. The Champion is a bronze statuette with a silver patina, depicting a victorious rower with a joyful expression, saluting an invisible crowd with his cap in his right hand while still holding an oar in his left hand. He is dressed in a sports jersey and knee-length pants. The long, slender lines of the skiff rest on waves still stirred by the movement of the boat. The plaque on the base indicates the title of the work: “Le Champion”. The skiff is one of the few rowing events that have always been part of the Olympic disciplines, although events have sometimes had to be canceled due to bad weather. Like a self-referential piece, The Champion can be a trophy intended to be awarded to the winner of a skiff race. This function is even clearer for another version of the sculpture sold by Coutau-Bégarie in 2019, whose base indicates that it is a trophy for the Coupe de Paris 1898, a competition held on the Seine that year. Hébert created at least one other sports-related work in his career: it is Bare-Knuckle Fight, also called The Boxers. This suite different work was sold by Coutau-Bégarie in 2021. It depicts the fight between two men, whose musculature and movements suggest the power of the blow delivered at that moment. Here, the men are in action, in the violence of the sporting effort. However, the sculpture does not require as much technical knowledge of the sport as the one representing the skiff.