Félix-Maurice Charpentier
French, 1858–1924
Muse, 1899
Cast bronze
H. 18 1/4 in. x W. 8 in. x L. 5 in.
Metz 677

Few details of the life of Charpentier are published. He began to model figures from backyard clay at the age of seven, studied with the sculptor Armand in Avignon, and moved to Paris in 1877. He studied under Pierre Cavelier and Amédée Doublemard at the Ècole des Beaux-Arts in the 1880s and began to exhibit at the Paris Salon in either 1882 or 1884. His form was admired for both its force of expression and for its beauty and grace. He exhibited several allegorical figures at the Salon in the 1880s, including the Muse, an edition of which is in the Metz Collection.