Who remembers that it is a statue of Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty and the Lion of Belfort?
Restored, in the chapel of the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, this Roman legionary, "of natural size, preparing to throw the pilum", proudly signed, could pass for a simple dusty plaster mannequin intended to animate the rooms. of this museum created under the Second Empire and dedicated to national Antiquities.
Not only is this strong and vibrant work an example of the 19th century taste for polychromy, but it is clad in leather and metal equipment made expressly by Leblanc, the supplier of Napoleon III and by a Parisian tailor named Hocher. .
It says everything about an unprecedented historical adventure.
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