Hero, ca. 1889

Hippolyte Leroy, who was born in Liège, began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent while doing his military service there. As a laureate of the Godecharle Prize, he travelled to Paris, where he helped the sculptor Alexandre Falguière on the crowning piece of the Arc de Triomphe. The marble Hero, which was first exhibited at the Salon of Ghent in 1883, shows the young priestess of Venus watching helplessly how her lover Leander drowns in the Bosporus, which he tries to cross to be with her. The young woman's pose closely resembles that of a Slave by the sculptor Jean Henri Cuypers, which was shown at the Brussels Salon in 1882. The broad dramatic gesture and the expression of pain on the young woman's face remain characteristic of a certain well-mannered classicism and show the French influence that dominates the entire production of this artist.