Sculptor
On the death of Emilien Cabuchet, on February 24, 1902, Le Journal de l’Ain noted: “La Bresse has just lost one of its illustrations and French sculpture one of its masters, perhaps the greatest in the 19the century, for the specialty he had chosen, that of religious subjects”. Who was this illustrious Bressan artist?
Born in Bourg-en-Bresse in 1819, he is the descendant of a family of notaries and doctors well established in this region of Bresse. Trained with the Jesuits (in Chambéry then in Spain), he then entered the Beaux Arts in Lyon to study drawing. But, attracted above all by sculpture, he finished his training in Paris (workshop of P.Ch Simart) and perfected his skills in Rome. Married in 1877 to Marguerite de Fresquet, he was the father of four children.
The Pope blesses his tools
Disdainful of material goods, a man of faith and heart, he seems to live only for his art: one day, in despair of his mediocre results, he left for Rome to have his tools blessed by the Pope… He created several sculptures which made him known beyond the limits of the department and specialized it in religious art: the Sacred Heart and the Holy Virgin from the altar of the Basilica of Lourdes, S. Vincent de Paul in Châtillon…
Father Toccanier, assistant to Mr. Vianney from 1853, deplored that the images representing the Curé of Ars were so ugly; these representations, which Mr. Vianney called his “carnival”, then circulated widely among the pilgrims of Ars and beyond the limits of the parish. Wanting to keep “a beautiful image” of his saintly Curé, he then spoke with confidence to E. Cabuchet with a view to keeping the memory of the one whom everyone already considered a saint; he accepted immediately.
Wax model
It was therefore planned that the sculptor would make a first wax model in the presence of his model. We obtained a letter of recommendation from the bishop – Mgr de Langalerie – in order to avoid the refusal of Mr. Vianney; he did not take it into account, and refused the experiment… Hidden means were then used so that the artist could “take” the face of the holy Curé. The best moment seemed to be that of catechisms in the church, where the holy Priest was then facing the crowd. In 1858, Émilien Cabuchet, mingling with the crowd of pilgrims, worked for 8 days on his small wax bust.
Mr. Vianney spotted him and almost sent him away, but everything finally returned to normal, and he created his little wax bust. From it, after the death of the holy Curé, he sculpted the large statue which made him famous: the Curé of Ars praying on his knees in front of the tabernacle, happy and abandoned (the statue is today in the Lantern candles, in front of the Basilica). He also created, on the occasion of the beatification of JM Vianney in 1905, the so-called statue of glorification, erected in the Basilica.
Extract from the Annales d’Ars n° 317[novembre-décembre 2008] .
