Tree or more Tuesday Bird bronzes

Last week I told you about a beautiful bronze statue of a bird on a wheat ear that was hidden in the last birdcage of that blog.

My husband and I where trilled about this silver wedding anniversary gift from our family.

The bronze is from the well know French artist André Vincent Becquerel.
We came across his bird bronzes by accident. A few years before this gift was made to us, my mother and I where at an antiques fair and all of the sudden we saw a bronze statue of a branch with 4 birds on. Its black base lay beside it. We where both immediatly atracted by it.

The base was signed by the letters AV Becquerel. We never heard of this artist before but since the bronze was not too expensive I advised my mother to buy it. Since that day it stands proudly on her coffee table and everybody loves it.
My younger brother, the man he is, wanted to know more about that Becquerel.
He surched and surched the internet but there is not much to be found. We see his work regulary at auctions and on Ebay and so, but he seems not to be a major artist.

There are two versions of his day of birth. Sometimes you see the date 1880 to 1940. On other websites you see 1893 t0 1981. Much of his work has influences of the Art Deco period so I would personaly rather go for the latter date. He has exhibited in Paris in the period between 1914 and 1922. That then again suggests rather the earlyer birthday since he only would have been 21 years old when he exhibited in 1914... I stays a mystery.

We have discoverd some other beautiful other sculptures of him, like leaping fish, deer, lioness and his famous panthers. He also made some bird booksupports and some radiator caps depictings dogs and hares. All these sculptures are much more Art Deco in style then the birds. But we mainly love his bird sculptures.

My brother was so fasinated by the bird bronze of my mother that he looked out for them and managed to find and buy some more. He knew I loved the one my mom bought and one day he found the one with the bird on the wheat ear in a small antique shop. First he offered me to buy it from him and I accepted that offer. Then when I wanted to give him the money he refused to sell it to me. I was very disappointed in him but afterwords of cause we found out that in the mean time the family had decided to gift it to us for our silver wedding anniversary.

So this one became the first I owned.

Of course I wanted some more... Trough Ebay I found the other once. The second one in the house where the seagulls on the waves...It is a common subject for Becquerel since I know of at least two other sculptures with gulls.

After a few years I saw this small one on the French Ebay site and bought it after asking my brother if he was also going to bid on it. We tell each other if there is another Becquerel on Ebay and we decide amoung us who is going to bid for it. We never bid against each other. Last september I found this big one with the whole flock of birds on a branch and managed to buy it. I weights a ton. But I love it so much.
A month agoo I found the last one. This is a sweety too. Look how graceful the grass bows and see the little snail that is crawling up the stem?

The birdies are just fledgelings.They look so young with hardly any feathers, huddled together looking at the snail that is crawling up to them. This bronze is more Art Deco in style than the other ones.
After I maneged to buy this one I said, now I have enough sculptures.I have no more place to put them...but I know I at least have my eye on two more. My mothers sculpture and the one with the birds picking cherry's that I managed to lose on Ebay. So I am saving up again for the next upportunity....