Style Other / Ref.12645

Albert-Ernest CARRIER-BELLEUSE « Woman with roses », bust in Carrara marble, second half of the 19th century

This marble bust presenting a young woman with bouquets of roses was created by one of the most prolific sculptors of the Second Empire, Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824 - 1887).

Mainly famous for being Auguste Rodin's (1840-1917) master, Carrier-Belleuse meets acknowledgment in 1863, when Napoléon III buys his Bacchant, now owned by the Musée d'Orsay. Starting from this date, the Emperor will grant him his full support until his reign's end. Even if he did realise lots of big marble groups, honoured during the Salons, it is his terra cotta busts which will bring fame to him. All along his career, he executes busts of his most famous contemporaries, as well as great historic figures, or fantasy busts inspired by the mythology, as it is for our bust.
Carrier-Belleuse represents here a young woman dressed in teh antic style, with a drapery half-dressing her. Her hair is gathered as a bun, adorned with a bouquet of roses attached by a ribbon, meanwhile some locks of hair fall on her forehead. Above the right breast we can find another bouquet of roses fastening the drapery. This piece of work is remarkable because of the delicacy of the execution which can be noted in the drapery's folds texture, in the elegance of the rose's petals or in the leaf's veins veracity.

This young lady with her roses can also be seen as an allegory of Spring, because the artist did produce other busts in the same spirit, representing each a season as an allegory.