Charpentier Relief for Getty

Alexandre Charpentier, Young Mother Breastfeeding Her Child, 1882 (model) and about 1895 (cast). Getty Museum

The Getty Museum has acquired Young Mother Breastfeeding Her Child, a stoneware relief by French sculptor Alexandre Charpentier (1856–1909). The image of the artist's sister-in-law and infant, first executed in plaster in 1882, made Charpentier's reputation. The French state bought the plaster and commissioned a marble. Charpentier subsequently produced bronze and stoneware versions. The luminous gold-ochre color of the Getty's relief stands out in the gallery of late nineteenth century sculpture.  

There is another stoneware Young Mother at the Musée d'Orsay and bronzes at the National Gallery of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Huntington. The Huntington bronze, bought in Henry and Arabella's time and once displayed in their mansion, is 46 in.-high and dated about 1890. It is hung in a Reference Library staircase, off-limits to visitors. 

Charpentier's generation perceived stoneware (grès) as an honest, unpretentious alternative to traditional bronze and marble. Young Mother was cast by the firm of Emile Muller, which also made building tiles. Stoneware is capable of taking sharp lines, displaying Charpentier's skill for anatomy and perspective. The virtuosic foreshortening of the child's legs invites comparison to Renaissance reliefs. 

With the rise of Art Nouveau, Charpentier became interested in the Gesamtkunstwerk, an architectural environment incorporating the arts into daily life. The Getty relief anticipates that philosophy, as it was once installed in the nursery of a suburban Paris home.

Charpentier's signature, Young Mother Breastfeeding Her Child