Following its exhibition in the great Romantics to Rodin show, this model of Leda and the Swan has often been attributed to James Pradier. In 1981, however, Henry Hawley identified it as the work of Feuchere from a signed version in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Certainly, the facial type and overt sensuality reflect strong affinities between Feuchere and Pradier.
Sometimes harshly judged on the basis of his more conventional public sculptures, such as the relief for the Arc de Triomphe and the figures on the fountain in the Place de la Concorde, Feuchere was, at his best, the Romantic sculptor par excellence.
Feuchere’s seated model of Mephistopheles, has become an icon of Romantic sculpture. It is undoubtedly in his small-scale statuettes that Feuchere seems most inventive and accomplished. In this genre Leda and the Swan relates to other groups such as Girl on a Dolphin, Daphnis and Chloe and Venus and Cupid.
Literature
Peter Fusco, The Romantics to Rodin pp.266-268 and pp.321-322 no.184.
H. Hawley, 'Some Intimate Sculptures of Feuchere', The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art, March 1981, pp.75-83
