Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse

LOUIS-ROBERT CARRIER-BELLEUSE (1848-1913).
"Love's chariot drawn by bacchantes".
Terracotta.
Signed.
Presents restoration in one of the hands.
Measurements: 42 x 75 x 21 cm.

Set in terracotta whose composition develops a theme of mythological character in which the triumph of love is expressed through a scene where a group of bacchantes, represented in full movement, drags the chariot with vitality. The terracotta modeling is characterized by an expressive execution that allows to appreciate the fluidity of the sculptural gesture. The scene, of Greco-Roman inspiration, combines Dionysian and allegorical elements within a decorative language of academic roots, but reinterpreted with the sensitivity of fin-de-siècle taste.

Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse was a representative figure of the French art of transition between the academicism of the 19th century and the new decorative sensibilities of the end of the century. A painter of genre scenes and urban landscapes, as well as a sculptor of notable production, he belonged to a prominent family of artists: he was the son of the celebrated sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and brother of the painter Pierre Carrier-Belleuse.

His training began in his father's studio and continued at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, under the instruction of Alexandre Cabanel and Gustave Boulanger, which explains the academic solidity of his style and the compositional elegance of his works. He made his debut at the Paris Salon in 1870 and, although he began as a painter, he ended up devoting himself mainly to sculpture, in which he exhibited regularly between 1889 and 1912.

His career was recognized with an honorary mention in 1887, a silver medal at the Universal Exposition of 1889 and his appointment as a Knight of the Legion of Honor. In addition, he served as artistic director of the Choisy-le-Roi earthenware factory, where he designed ornamental models that were widely distributed.

His work is characterized by the combination of academic rigor and decorative sensibility, integrating the observation of the everyday with a refined taste for the allegorical and the classical, a trait that is clearly manifested in the piece described here.