Alexandre-Louis-Marie Charpentier
Paris, 1856 - 1909, Neuilly, Hauts-de-Seine
(b Paris, 10 June 1856; d Neuilly, Hauts-de-Seine, 3 March 1909).
French sculptor, medallist and designer. After studying with the medal engraver Hubert Ponscarmé, he first exhibited at the Salon of 1879. His first significant work, exhibited in 1883, was a bas-relief, Young Woman Suckling her Child; the final version of this, in marble, was later ordered by the State (Aix-en-Provence, Mus. Granet). This work contained most elements of the artist’s aesthetic—the choice of a familiar subject from life, treated in a natural and robust style, in the manner of Aimé-Jules Dalou. From the start Charpentier had a clear mastery of bas-relief, and his best work is in modelled reliefs—medals, small portrait medallions of great warmth and integrity (e.g. Paris, Mus. d’Orsay), mural decorations and works on a monumental scale, such as the frieze of The Bakers, modelled in 1889 and executed in 1897 in enamelled bricks by the firm of Muller (Paris, Square Scipion).
Charpentier exhibited with the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and later the Salon d’Automne, both in Paris, and from 1890 in Brussels with Les Vingt. From the early 1890s he was a key figure in the movement to revive the arts related to interior decoration and design, and one of the founder-members, with Félix Aubert, Jean Dampt, Henry Nocq and Charles Plumet, of L’Art dans tout (1896–1902). His furniture and domestic ornaments, inspired more by naturalism than Symbolism, are typical examples of Art nouveau. In both his collaborative interior design schemes, such as that for the Villa la Sapinière in Evian, Haute-Savoie (c. 1897–9), with Félix Bracquemond and Jules Chéret, and his individual work, such as the dining-room for Adrien Bénard (1846–1912) at Champrosay (c. 1901; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay), Charpentier acted more as a decorator than a sculptor, carefully creating a perfectly homogenous ensemble, down to the details of the locks and doorhandles. More than these spectacular but rare commissions, it was his innumerable decorative plaquettes in bronze, tin, ceramic, leather and embossed paper (e.g. Paris, Mus. d’Orsay) that brought him lasting success. He also turned his hand to free-standing sculpture, for instance the bust of Linette Aman-Jean (terracotta, 1908; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay).
Bibliography
Forrer
M. Bascou: ‘Une Boiserie Art Nouveau d’Alexandre Charpentier’, Rev. Louvre, 3 (1979), pp. 219–28 [with extensive bibliog.]
A. Pingeot, A. Le Normand-Romain and L. de Margerie: Catalogue sommaire illustré des sculptures, Paris, Mus. d’Orsay cat. (Paris, 1986)
C. Matthieu: Guide to the Musée d’Orsay (Paris, 1987), pp. 232–3
R. Froissart Pezone: Le groupe de l’Art dans tout (1896–1901) un art nouveau au seuil du XXe siècle (Lille, 2000)
Marc Bascou
Grove Art online, accessed 11/19/2013 by E. Reluga
Person TypeIndividual
Last Updated8/7/24
Dublin, 1848 - 1907, Cornish, New Hampshire
