Rembrandt Bugatti is arguably one of the most important sculptors of animals of the early twentieth century. Inspired by the impressionist tradition, Bugatti was dedicated to studying animals from life at Antwerp Museum and the Jardin des Plantes where he lived in Paris. In his short but inspirational career, Bugatti created over 300 works that he hoped would go beyond traditional animal art and express both emotion, empathy and vitality. As Philipp Demandt, recent Head of Altenational Galerie in Berlin said in a recent film “He wanted to prove that he was more than just an animalier, in fact he’s much more – he’s a born sculptor, nothing else.”

Born in Milan in 1884, Rembrandt Bugatti’s father was the well-known fin de siècle designer Carlo Bugatti and his brother the eponymous automobile designer Ettore Bugatti. Moving to Paris at the age of 19 he met the bronze caster Adrien Hébrard with whom he worked closely and showed his sculpture in solo exhibitions at the foundry’s gallery, Galerie Hébrard. Eschewing much of the vibrant social side of artistic Paris in the early 1900s for his work, Bugatti nonetheless won the attention of fellow sculptor Auguste Rodin and the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire. As Rembrandt Bugatti specialist Edward Horswell described, the key difference in Bugatti’s work is that each work is an intimate portrait, not a generic panther for example but a particular one that he had studied for days from life which helps to imbue each work with a very individual character.

These two expressive condors were gifted as plasters by Bugatti to the director of Antwerp Zoo, François L'Hoëst. They were never cast in bronze by Hébrard so in 2004, to preserve the piece from deterioration in the plaster, the Conservatoire of Rembrandt Bugatti decided that these plasters should be cast into bronze in a small edition of six and given the silver colouring of the plaster original one edition in silver. In keeping with Rembrandt Bugatti’s close association with the Chef d’Atelier at Hébrard, the Conservatoire selected Pangolin Editions to cast the work in the knowledge that they would take the same care and attention to translate the work from the plaster original into metal and that they had the same passion for the study of animals as Bugatti.

Andean Condors, which are considered one of the largest flying birds in the world, are primarily carrion eaters with a huge wingspan of up to 3.3 metres. The pair in this exhibition can be seen with the female enjoying shredding meat whilst the male with his comb and ruff, looks on.