Some of the works named Barbus Müller by Jean Dubuffet, including this one, are today attributed to Antoine Rabany, nicknamed “the Zouave,” a former soldier who became a farmer and then a self-taught sculptor, and who lived in Chambon-sur-Lac, in the Puy-de-Dôme. A photograph of his garden confirms that several sculptures are the same as those thus named by Dubuffet.
This name comes from the fact that the figures are often depicted with a beard and that they are connected to the collector Josef Müller, who owned a large number of them. However, the poor quality of the photograph does not make it possible to identify all of the works circulating in collections, nor to associate them with this author with certainty.
These sculptures were first presented by Dubuffet in 1947, during the first exhibition of the Foyer de l’Art Brut in the basement of the René Drouin Gallery in Paris.