Medea, Marble statue in Tuileries Garden, France
Medea is a marble sculpture by Paul Gasq located in the Tuileries Garden that portrays a mother in a moment of extreme despair. The work shows a female figure standing beside a child while holding a broken object.
Medea was completed in 1904 by the sculptor Paul Gasq, not in 1896. The marble figure was placed in the Tuileries Garden, where it stands among the garden's 19th- and 20th-century sculptures. Gasq, born in 1860, trained at the École des Beaux-Arts and won the Prix de Rome in 1890.
The subject is Medea, the Colchian sorceress of Greek myth who killed her own children; Gasq shows her with a dagger and one child at her side. The marble was bought by the City of Paris and set up in the Tuileries in 1904, the year the sculptor died.
The work is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris and remains accessible year-round. The pathways surrounding the statue are designed without barriers, making it easy for visitors with various needs to view it.
Medea's right hand grips the hilt of a dagger rather than a broken object, poised as if she is about to strike the two children at her feet. Paul Gasq modelled the marble in 1904, and the work entered the Tuileries Garden, where it stands among the garden's 19th-century statues.
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