Rooster Bookends Pair, Carlos Van Dionant Signed Bronze Cockerels on Green Marble — Belgian, Early 20th Century

The rooster is the barnyard's only aristocrat, and the animalier sculptors knew it. Where the school's stags and panthers played wildness, the cockerel offered something closer to home — vanity, vigilance, and that upswept architecture of tail feathers no other subject provides. The Belgian sculptor Carlos Van Dionant, working across the turn of the twentieth century, modelled his poultry with the seriousness the French masters gave their big cats, and his works have passed repeatedly through the public auction rooms.

This pair of bookends is Belgian, early twentieth century, in bronze, each signed C. Van Dionant in the cast beneath the tail: two cockerels, modelled seated with breasts full and tails sweeping up in layered, wind-caught plumes, each on a stepped plinth of green-veined marble — and beneath one base survives the paper label of Kluppens & Cie of the Rue Royale, Brussels, the art dealer through whose rooms the pair first passed. Look at the feather work across the breast and hackles — the engraving follows each feather group's change of direction, dense at the neck and opening across the wing, the observed texture that separates a sculptor's bird from a decorator's. The patina has built through a century of respectful use.

The bronzes carry their working patina handsomely, and the marbles are sound, with only micro-nibbles to the edges that a fingertip finds before the eye does — stated exactly as they are, and photographed. Whoever shelved their books between these cockerels before you kept signature, label, and patina all intact. They are ready for a library shelf, a study, or a kitchen bookcase with ambitions.

The pair is signed bronze on marble, nearly four kilograms together, with its Brussels dealer's label surviving. It arrives professionally packed and fully insured — we handle the paperwork and worldwide shipping, with all import duties paid by us, so there is nothing to settle on delivery. Returns are accepted within 30 days.

DETAILS:
Size: each — Height 19 cm (7.5 in) · Marble base 13 × 11.5 cm (5.1 × 4.5 in) — each roughly the height of a hardcover book
Material: bronze, signed in the cast; green-veined marble plinths
Style/Period: Belgian animalier school, early 20th century — signed C. Van Dionant; Kluppens & Cie Brussels dealer's label beneath one base
Weight: 1.845 kg each (4.1 lb); approx. 3.7 kg the pair
Shipping: professionally packed, fully insured, worldwide — we handle the paperwork, with all import duties paid by us; nothing to settle on delivery
Condition: very good condition; respectable use patina to bronzes, micro-nibbles to marble edges felt before seen (see photos)
Returns: accepted within 30 days

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