Germaine, By Alexandre Charpentier

Germaine, plaster representing the artist's daughter.
Dimensions of the plaster: width: 12cm height: 15cm

Alexandre Charpentier was born into a modest family, the son of a road worker. At the age of twelve, he entered as an apprentice with an ornamental engraver, then a pipe maker. Aspiring to a more artistic career, he decided to become a sculptor. His paternal rejection led him to several years of vagrancy and misery, then entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1873, as a pupil of Hubert Ponscarme, in medal engraving, who encouraged and supported him. In 1890, he exhibited at the Belgian avant-garde Salon, the XX and enjoyed great success and numerous commissions, extirpating him from his difficult condition; a success that continued throughout the decade. In 1895, he exhibited at the Art Nouveau gallery inaugurated by Siegfried Bing, his works were noticed there, then in 1899 at the store-gallery La Maison Moderne by Julius Meier Graefe. In 1896, he was one of the founders of the group "L'Art dans Tout" which organized annual exhibitions until 1901, with the aim of questioning the hierarchies of major and minor arts and the accessibility of art. art to the middle and working classes. In the following years, Alexandre Charpentier continued to exhibit but more occasionally. Note the inauguration of the Salle Maus at the Ixelles museum, where several of the artist's works appear there. The sculptor died shortly afterwards, in 1909.