Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse French, 1824-1887

This terracotta is in very good condition and displays a lovely origianl wash. There is surface dirt, minor chips and rubbing consistent with age.
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Auguste Rodin had great affection for Carrier-Belleuse, an emotion he did not feel for the other master sculptors for who he worked.  "Carrier-Belleuse," he told Dujardin-Beaumetz, "had 18th century blood in his veins.  Clodion was in him, his models were admirable; ...the was an artist of great value" Rodin's work in the studio of Carrier-Belleuse is not well recorded.  In 1864 he joined the active workshop and although he would have begun as a subordinate to other modellers, it is manifest that he was soon trusted with compositional freedom his master.  The strong, muscular and sinuous legs of the Hercules figure in Deux Bacchantes et un Hercule portent un vase are reminiscent of the legs in Carrier-Belleuse's Vase of the Titans (version of c. 1876-8; London, V&A).  Although the Vase of the Titans is signed by Carrier-Belleuse, it is generally accepted that the figures were modelled by Rodin and based on the drawings of the master.  The noted art historian H. W. Janson has suggested that the Vase of Titans was issued as a limited-edition and it can be assumed the same for the Vase, which was exhibited in 1900 at the Exposition centennale de l'art francaise (no. 1522) as the property of Mme Joseph Chéret who was also Carrier-Belleuse's pupil and a contemporary of Rodin.

The Vase was likely a collaboration between Carrier and Rodin after Rodin's trip to Italy in 1875.  His work henceforth exhibits a Michelangelesque style, distinguished from the more formal modelling he did earlier in his career under the direction of Carrier-Belleuse, such as the Innocence Tormented by Love, a work on which it is known he collaborated. The Hercules exhibits his newfound sculptural complexity and force which plays off the more gentile treatment of the female figures.

Janson aptly wrote in 1968 "Now that Rodin's fame as the grandfather of modern sculpture has been secure for half a century, we are beginning to take a more differentiated and generous view of his predecessors and contemporaries."  He goes on to say that Carrier-Belleuse is a significant figure who together with Dalou and Carpeaux, "deserve much more attention than they have received so far, not only in relation to Rodin but as significant figures in their own right".

RELATED LITERATURE
Lami, vol. 1, p. 281; Janson, pp. 278-80