Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: 12 works

'In 1871, French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux briefly lived in exile in London. It was likely then that he sketched these studies of horses' heads, based on sculptures from the east pediment frieze of the Parthenon, which is housed in the British Museum.'

'He asked another boy to pose alternately so he could concentrate on the details of the clothing.'

'Carpeaux shows the anguished father resisting his children's offer of their own bodies for his sustenance.'

'Over a three-year period, he produced a variety of sketches and models before conceiving this turning farandole of women encircling the spirit of dance.'

'Baron Haussmann, the prefect of Paris who gave the city the face we know today, commissioned Carpeaux to design a fountain for the Luxembourg Gardens in 1867.'

'He worked primarily in France and Italy and participated in ambitious projects such as the restoration and expansion of the Louvre starting in the 1850s as well as receiving official commissions from French and Italian Royals and dignitaries. He is best known for his sculpture La Danse which was seen as controversial when it was first displayed to the public in 1869.'

'Between 1863 and 1866, he was working on the southern façade of the Louvre, overlooking the Seine, decorating it with sculptural ornaments (Imperial France Enlightening the World and The Triumph of Flora), later made an allegorical sculpture, The Four Continents, for the fountain in the garden of the Luxembourg Palace, and another multi-figured composition, The Dance, for a façade, this time of the Opera Garniér. In 1871, during the Commune, he sought refuge in London, and it was upon returning to Paris in 1872 that he revived the enterprise, one of whose fruits is the terracotta piece in Budapest.'

'Inspired by the project, Carpeaux created his own figure of Figaro, the witty and ingenious character of eighteenth-century comedy and opera. The graceful attitude of this figure is characteristic of Carpeaux's work as well as an homage to Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), the seminal painter of such elegant figures who, like Carpeaux, was born in the northern French town of Valenciennes.'

'Sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux made the first version of this bust of his friend in clay when he and Gérôme were both exiled in London during the Paris Commune of 1871. Carpeaux sent a bronze version to the 1872 Salon and produced many other versions of the bust in terrracotta, plaster, and bronze.'

'Sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux made the first version of this bust of his friend in clay when he and Gérôme were both exiled in London during the Paris Commune of 1871.'

'These textures, indications that the work is not "finished" by conventional standards, are richly suggestive, perhaps drawing upon the expressive power of the unfinished sculptures of Carpeaux's hero, Michelangelo.'

'He carved it while staying with the Dumas couple in the north of France near Dieppe.'