Marcel-André Bouraine "Turbot" Illuminated Aquarium Sculpture

Marcel-André Bouraine (1886–1948), born in Pontoise, France, emerged as one of the leading sculptors of the Art Deco movement, though little is known of his early training before the First World War, during which he was captured and interned in Switzerland. There he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva, forming lifelong friendships with Max Le Verrier and Pierre Le Faguays, and completed Le Souvenir, a monument gifted to the city of Geneva in gratitude for its hospitality to French internees. After the war, Bouraine returned to France and quickly established himself on the Parisian art scene, exhibiting from 1922 at the Salon des Tuileries, joining the Société des Artistes Français, and participating regularly in major Salons, including the landmark 1925 Exposition de Paris. He contributed monumental bas-reliefs to the Pavillon de la Ville de Paris and later received major commissions for the 1937 Exposition Internationale, including a polychrome cement fountain relief and a monumental ceramic figure for the Sèvres Pavilion. Known especially for his refined chryselephantine figures, as well as full bronzes and classical figural groups such as Diana the Huntress, Bouraine also designed glass sculptures produced by Gabriel Argy-Rousseau in the 1930s. His works are held in major museum and private collections worldwide, and many were cast by the Le Verrier foundry. Bouraine occasionally worked under the pseudonyms Derenne and Briand, names associated with works closely linked to his own production.