Portrait Bust of Comtesse d'Affry, née Lucie de Maillardoz (1816-1897)
1860/70
Medium
Plaster
Dimensions
54.6 × 48.9 × 33.9 cm (26 1/2 × 19 1/4 × 13 1/4 in.)
Classification
bust/head
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
41319
Art Historical Context
This plaster portrait bust by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux captures Comtesse d’Affry, née Lucie de Maillardoz, with the lively naturalism that defined French sculpture during the Second Empire. Created between 1860 and 1870, the work reflects the era’s renewed interest in individualized likenesses of the aristocracy, rendered at a moment when photography was beginning to compete with traditional sculpture for commemorative purposes. Carpeaux, celebrated for his expressive modeling and fluid surfaces, often used plaster for preliminary studies or presentation casts before translating a design into m...
About the Artist
Jean Baptiste Carpeaux · 1827–1875
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875) was a French sculptor and painter who became the most dynamic and expressive sculptor of the Second Empire period, bridging the traditions of Romantic sculpture and the emerging naturalism of the later nineteenth century. Born in Valenciennes into a working-class family, he studied at the Petit École and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under François Rude and F...