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Giant sculpture, missing for 137 years, discovered

Angelique has turned up again after 137 years, though frankly, given that she stands over 2m tall, weighs several tonnes, and is wearing nothing except a scrap of drapery and a chain, it's staggering that she went unnoticed for so long.

"She does make quite an effect," said Alexander Kader, head of sculpture at auctioneers Sotheby's. "She was just standing there in a rather large entrance hallway. The fortunate thing is that she was never put out in a garden, she's always been kept indoors, so the condition is just lovely."

The statue was the masterpiece of the French sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, in whose studio the young Rodin trained.

It represents the much abused heroine of Orlando Furioso, a Renaissance poem by Ludovico Ariosto. She was chained up on a rock by the villainous Irish as a sea monster's lunch.

It is carved not from the more common Italian Carrara marble, but from a massive block of pure white French marble -- which, Kader said appreciatively, has a slight sparkle when you get up really close to her in a good light.

The sculpture was a huge hit at the Paris Salon, and was last exhibited at an international exhibition in Brussels in 1868; and then vanished. It was probably bought by a Belgian collector from that exhibition, and has remained in private collections there ever since.

Carrier-Belleuse made very few full size marbles, of which Angelique was by far the most famous. The piece was known only from rapturous contemporary accounts, and smaller later terracotta models.

Kader suspects it may also have been disguised in some sale catalogues, wrongly identified as Andromeda, another sorely tried rock-bound maiden from mythology.

Angelique will be auctioned at Sotheby's in London next month, estimated at up to ?300,000.
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