Paul Bouré

His teacher Simonis wrote to him in 1842 on the value of studying in Florence: You can also, and perhaps more easily than in the Eternal City, compare the ancient plaster casts that you have obtained for study with the marble originals, and in this manner convince yourself of the absurdity of the great number of critics who only judge ancient sculptors on the basis of bad plaster casts that came into their range of vision by sheer chance.

[1]He began studies in 1842 at the workshop of Emilio Santarelli (1801–1886), rather than at the Florence academy, and earned the attention of Lorenzo Bartolini, who was struck by his precocious talent.

[4] At the time, however, a reviewer characterized the work as an entirely physical treatment of the myth, admittedly modeled "with an astonishing power and vigor," but failing to capture what was then a common view of Prometheus as a Christ-like figure symbolizing the struggle of doomed human intelligence.

"[5] In 1848, Bouré showed Enfant jouant aux billes (Child Playing with Balls) and Sauvage surpris par un serpent (Savage Surprised by a Snake), earning the gold medal.

Bouré departs from the classical heroic conception by portraying his human subject as "without hope, already defeated, strangled and trapped, deprived of any possibility of fighting for liberty.