A specialist in animal sculpture from 1880 to 1950, Xavier Eeckhout presents works by the great masters of the early 20th century, including Pompon, Bugatti and Sandoz, as well as Artus, Le Bourgeois, Lémar, Petersen, Guyot and Godchaux, for whom he has written the catalogue raisonné.
In his gallery in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, he regularly inaugurates thematic exhibitions, alongside the international fairs in which he has participated for over ten years.
François POMPON
(Saulieu, 1855 – Paris, 1933)
Hippopotamus
Bronze
Signed « POMPON », under the left front leg
Model conceived in 1918
Cast by C. Valsuani, no foundry mark, our bronze realised between 1929 and 1932
14 x 22 x 6,5 cm.
According to the catalogue raisonné of Liliane Colas (Norma éditions, Paris, 2025, pp. 318-319, n. 75, 1st state), 12 exemplars know to date (with or without foundry mark)
Certificate of Liliane Colas dated 11 February 2026
Provenance
– Acquired by Dr. Etienne Lortat-Jacob (1902-1975), 1940’s. Included in his 1964 inventory established by expert Gilbert de Knyff :
– Then by descent, Alain Lortat-Jacob (1944-2025), his son ;
– Then by descent, Sylvie Lortat-Jacob, the wife of the previous.
Bibliography
Liliane Colas, Pompon, Norma éditions, Paris, 2025, pp. 318-319, n. 75, 1st state
Our hippopotamus, exceptionally rare, has been in the Lortat-Jacob family since its creation to the present day.
Discovered by Xavier Eeckhout, it illustrates the talent of the master of animal sculpture from the early 20th century, who was fascinated by the research of movement. François Pompon often worked on the same model for many years, creating several different versions in his quest for perfection. A century earlier, Balzac had already posed this question in Le Chef-d’ oeuvre inconnu (1831): does the quest for the absolute in art lead to a masterpiece or to destruction ?
The hippopotamus’s bellow propels it backwards; this imbalance is accentuated by the hindquarters suspended in mid-air, creating a sense of tension. Here, Pompon succeeds in capturing the animal’s movement, the mass of its raised, open mouth counterbalancing the hindquarters. The enveloping roundness draws Pompon’s work towards a return to Antiquity, a masterpiece of eternity.
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