Christine LePage Figurative Sculptures

This elegant terracotta head is a memorial portrait (nsodie) of an Akan nobleman from the part of Africa which is today southern Ghana and southeastern Cô...

Tête de Faune, Picasso, Unique work, 1960's, Terracotta, Tiles, Design, Sculptur Tête de faune Unique work 14.03.1961 Painted and glazed terracotta tile...

This remarkably fluid terracotta bozetto was made in preparation for Pietro Pacilli’s most important public commission, a large-scale marble statue of San Camillo de Lellis for the nave of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Expressively modelled, this terracotta sculpture is a rare and significant work made by a major Roman sculptor at a transformative moment of European sculpture. Pacilli began his working life on the great Baroque decorative projects initiated in the seventeenth century, but he found success as a restorer of ancient sculpture working to finish antiquities for a tourist market, becoming an important figure in the emergence of an archaeologically minded Neoclassicism. Pacilli trained Vincenzo Pacetti and provided important decorative work for the Museo Pio-Clementino, at the same time he is recorded restoring some of the most celebrated antiquities excavated and exported during the period. Pacilli was born into a family of Roman craftsmen, his father Carlo was a wood carver, and Pacilli is recorded working with him on the Corsini Chapel in San Giovanni Laternao as early as 1735. In 1738 his terracotta model of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife won the first prize in the second class of the sculpture concorso at the Accademia di San Luca, this is particularly notable as Bartolomeo Cavaceppi came third. He worked as a carver and stuccoist completing works for the churches of San Marco and SS. Trinita dei Domeniciani Spagnoli. Pacilli operated as a sculptor and restorer of antiquities from his studio at the top of the Spanish Steps, close to Santa Trinita dei Monti, where he is listed as a potential vendor to the Museo Pio-Clementino in 1770. In 1763 Pacilli completed a silver figure of San Venanzio for the treasury of San Venanzio. He is recorded as Pacetti’s first master and it was evidently through Pacilli that he began to acquire his facility as a restorer of ancient sculpture. Pacilli, at his studio ‘poco prima dell’Arco della Regina alla Trinita dei Monti,’ exercised, what the nineteenth-century scholar, Adolf Michaelis called ‘rejuvenating arts’ on several important pieces of classical sculpture, including in 1760 the group of a Satyr with a Flute for the natural brother of George III, General Wallmoden, Hanovarian minister at Vienna. In 1765, Dallaway and Michaelis record that Pacilli was responsible for the restorations, including the addition of a new head, to the Barberini Venus which he had acquired from Gavin Hamilton. The Venus was then sold to Thomas Jenkins, who in turn passed it on to William Weddell at Newby Hall. In 1767 Pacilli exported a series of ancient busts ‘al naturale’ including portraits of Antinous, Julius Ceaser and Marus Aurelius, also a statue of a Muse and a Venus. As early as 1756 Pacilli seems to have been operating as an antiquarian, helping to disperse the collection of the Villa Borrioni. Pacilli supplied sculpture to notable British collectors, including Charles Townley, who on his first trip to Italy purchased the Palazzo Giustiniani statue of Hecate from Pacilli. Pacilli was involved with the Museo Pio Clementino from its conception, supplying busts of Julius Ceaser and a Roman Woman as well as completing stucco putti surmounting the arms of Pope Bendedict XIV to signal the entrance to the new Museo Critiano. In 1750 Il Diario Ordinario del Chracas announced that Pacilli had begun work on a sculpture of San Camillo de Lellis for St Peter’s. Camillo de Lellis founded his congregation, the Camillians, with their distinctive red felt crosses stitched on black habits in 1591. Having served as a soldier in the Venetian army, Camillo de Lellis became a novitiate of the Capuchin friars, he moved to Rome and established a religious community for the purpose of caring for the sick. In 1586 Pope Sixtus V formerly recognised the Camillians and assigned them to the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Rome. Camillo de Lellis died in 1614 and was entombed at Santa Maria Maddalena, he was canonised by Benedict XIV on June 26, 1746. It was an occasion that prompted the Camillians to make a number of significant artistic commissions, including two canvases by Pierre Subleyras showing episodes from San Camillo’s life which they presented to Benedict XIV. In 1750 Pacilli was commissioned to fill one of the large niches on the north wall of the nave with a sculpture of San Camillo. The present terracotta bozetto presumably had two important functions, to enable Pacilli to work out his ideas for the finished sculpture and at the same time to show his design to the various commissioning bodies. In this case it would have been Cardinal Alessandro Albani and Monsignor Giovan Francesco Olivieri, the ‘economo’ or treasurer of the fabric of St Peter’s. Previously unrecorded, this terracotta relates to a smaller, less finished model which has recently been identified as being Pacilli’s first idea for his statue of San Camillo. Preserved in Palazzo Venezia, in Rome, the terracotta shows San Camillo with his left hand clutching his vestments to his breast; the pose and action more deliberate and contained than the finished sculpture. In producing the present terracotta Pacilli has expanded and energised the figure. San Camillo is shown with his left hand extended, his head turned to the right, apparently in an attempt to look east down the nave of St Peter’s. The model shows Pacilli experimenting with San Camillo’s costume; prominently on his breast is the red cross of his order, whilst a sense of animation is injected into the figure through the billowing cloak which is pulled across the saint’s projecting right leg. The power of the restrained, axial contrapposto of bent right leg and outstretched left arm, is diminished in the final sculpture where a baroque fussiness is introduced to the drapery. What Pacilli’s terracotta demonstrates, is that he conceived the figure of San Camillo very much in line with the immediate tradition of depicting single figures in St Peter’s; the rhetorical gesture of dynamic saint, arm outstretched, book in hand, head pointed upwards was perhaps borrowed from Camillo Rusconi’s 1733 sculpture of St. Ignatius...

Very rare Art Deco three dimensional terracotta sculpture of Adam and Eve by the Austrian artist, Virgil Rainer. Hand painted by the artist. Signed bott...

Maxwell Mustardo is a ceramic artist whose highly textured forms are the result of meticulous research into the chemistry of kiln firing. He includes materials such as glass, metals,...

Terracotta Sculpture by Swedish artist Evert Lindfors (1927-2016), made in the 1970s. Evert moved to France in the 1940s where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He worked from the mid-1950s as a painter in Lacoste in Provence, France. Towards the end of the 1960s, he switched to terracotta sculpture. He met his friend Torsten Renqvist...

Henri Matisse collected Persian carpets, Arab embroideries and African wall hangings throughout his life, his studio becoming a treasure trove of exotic and vibrant pattern. The collection was practical — it was the impetus for various works with voluptuous women surrounded by rich textures and patterns. Sandy Kaplan takes Matisse's work to a three-dimensional level in her ceramic piece simply titled "Matisse's Persian Woman". Sandy Kaplan Matisse's Persian Woman ceramic 18h x 14w x 14d in 45.72h x 35.56w x 35.56d cm SAK007 Sandy Kaplan b. 1943, St. Louis, MO 2021 Maturity and Its Muse, Art Saint Louis 2020 Storytellers Exhibit, Art Saint Louis 2019 SOFA Chicago, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Honors Exhibit, Art Saint Louis Anthony Bourdain - Parts Unknown: Ceramic Centric, Foundry Arts Ctr, St. Charles, MO Current Profiles, Craft Alliance Center, St. Louis, MO 2018 SOFA Chicago, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Maturity and Its Muse, Art Saint Louis Works from the Studios, Craft Alliance, St. Louis, MO Drawn From Life: Artful Aging, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 2017 3-D, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL SOFA Chicago, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2016 Works from the Studio, Craft Alliance, St. Louis, MO A Moveable Feast Exhibit, Oak Park Art League, Oak Park, IL Maturity and Its Muse, Art Saint Louis 2015 Writers Round Table, Craft Alliance Gallery, St. Louis, MO 2014 Save the Last Dance for Me, Art Saint Louis XXX...

A fabulous and rare large 19th century Bombay Pottery Charger from the J J School of Art, depicting scenes of Buddha from the Ajanta caves. Bombay Scho...

Large Pre Columbian style clay, terracotta sculpture Limited Edition 6/30, signed. Walter Bastianetto, was born in Venice Italy. He graduate of...

Head of a warrior. From the Totonaca culture (state of Veracruz) created about 1982. Modern Pre Columbian style clay, terracotta sculpture artist signed on the right bottom. Walter...

Sculpture by Brazilian-born artist Elizabeth Freire. B&W photo is of Ms. Freire with renowned sculptor Etienne Martin at the Ecole Nationals des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Elizabeth Freire is a Brazilian-born, contemporary American artist. At the age of eighteen, she left Rio de Janeiro and moved to Paris to study sculpture at l’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, receiving her Diploma there in 1979 under the direction of Claude Viseux, Etienne Martin, and Cesar. During that time she worked as an apprentice at the Fonderie de France where she learned bronze technique and she also attended etching courses at l’Ecole de Montparnasse. In 1976, she won a commission to make three life-size figures representing the printing company, “Les Imprimeries de Boulogne,” at the International Printing Fair in Paris. She spent 1977 in Aix-en-Provence where she carved the local stone of Rogne. Returning to Paris, the painter Lutka Pink introduced her to Otero, Frans Krajcberg and Hajdu from whom she received valuable lessons. In 1978, she traveled to Brazil where she was invited to participate in the exhibit ‘A Century of Sculpture in Brazil’. She also met with the sculptor Sergio Camargo...

Cavities (2022), Glazed ceramic birthday cake sculpture with strawberry faces; two tier birthday cake with strawberries The artist describes herself as "Maker of Fruit, Mother of C...