Albert Ernest Carrier Belleuse

ALBERT ERNEST CARRIER BELLEUSE (France, 1824 - 1887).
"Offering to Bacchus".
Patinated bronze and marble base.
Presents foundry stamp "Sindicat des Fabricants de Bronze".
Signed on the base.
Measurements: 45 x 14 x 14 cm.
Artisan and engraver by training, he was the most famous decorator of the Second Empire and the Third Republic. He worked for the Tuileries, the Louvre and the Opera of Paris. Trained outside the academic tradition of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he was able to extract unparalleled decorative possibilities from different materials in a neo-baroque style. Carrier was known in his time for the variety of his production, which ranged from public monuments to small decorative pieces. He obtained public acclaim, as well as state patronage, thanks to his "Messiah", a work made in marble, in 1867. He also aroused controversy with the figures of voluptuous women that he presented in the Parisian Salons. Master of anatomy and characterization, he was also a great portraitist. He was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1855, and was Auguste Rodin's teacher between 1864 and 1870. At the end of his life he directed ceramic manufactures in England and Sèvres. Today Carrier Belleuse is represented in the Musée d'Orsay, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Paul J. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Galleries in Washington D.C. and Canberra, the Chi-Mei Museum in Taiwan, the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, among many others.