Among the masterpieces of the Wallace Collection, two firedogs after the great roman sculptor Alessandro Algardi (1598–1654) stand out. The first pair of these large bronzes was intended for King Philip IV of Spain.
In 1650, taking advantage of his embassy in Italy, Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) commissioned Algardi to make firedogs representing the four elements: Jupiter (Fire), Juno (Air), Neptune (Water) and Cybele (Earth).
When he died in 1654, Algardi had cast only the first two bronzes. Sent to Spain, they were not used as firedogs but rather as decorative sculptures, and they remain today in the royal collections.
Louis XIV instilled in his son, the Grand Dauphin, a taste for the arts and encouraged his burgeoning passion for bronze sculpture. Indeed, when he was only 20, in 1681, the king presented him with nine of the finest bronzes in his collection, most of them depicting the Labours of Hercules.
The prince was not slow to acquire new pieces, as the first known inventory of his collections, drawn up in 1689, lists no fewer than 54 bronzes on display in his Versailles apartment.
The Algardi firedogs in the Wallace Collection can be identified under numbers 33 and 34. Valued at 400 (Fire) and 350 (air) pistoles, these bronzes, acquired from the Dauphin's personal accounts, were the most expensive in his collection.
In 1683, the Dauphin moved into the ground floor of the south-central section of Versailles. Traditionally, this apartment consisted of a guardroom, an antechamber and an adjoining bedroom.
These ceremonial rooms opened onto the Parterre du Midi. The rooms facing the Parterre d'Eau (the main garden façade of the château) were reserved for displaying the Dauphin's collections. This apartment consisted of a small salon and a jewellery gallery, which were brought together in 1693 to form the Grand Cabinet.
This was followed by a Gilded Cabinet and the Cabinet of Mirrors, the last room in the apartment. The Cabinet of Mirrors was the highlight of the enfilade: it was decorated on the floor and ceiling with mirrors set into marquetry panelling by André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) and was used to display hundreds of porcelains, gems and small bronzes.
The famous cabinetmaker found in the prince a passionate patron. In addition to the panelling for the Cabinet of Mirrors, the Dauphin commissioned a number of pieces of furniture, some of which have survived.
The Abbey of Chaalis, for example, has in its collections a pair of octagonal pedestals made by Boulle for the Dauphin in 1686.
These two impressive pedestals were used to display the Algardi firedogs. In fact, the tops of these pedestals are shaped like the bases of the bronzes.
They were probably displayed without their current spiral-shaped feet, as other known examples of the firedogs, such as those in the Spanish royal collections, have bases without these supports. We can therefore imagine that the sculptures were placed directly on the Boulle pedestals, creating an artistic harmony between the furniture and the sculptures.
It was in this astonishing and majestic setting that the bronzes were displayed in the Grand Dauphin's apartment at Versailles.
In 1693, they were transferred to the Château de Choisy, which the Dauphin had recently inherited from the Grande Mademoiselle, the king's cousin. Two years later, the pedestals and bronzes were transferred to the Château de Meudon, a splendid estate that the prince became the owner of and would go on to embellish. During the French Revolution, these precious works of art were sold off and were later acquired by Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford.
This article was written by Lionel Arsac, Curator in Charge of Sculptures at the Château de Versailles.