Object Description
Designed by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and cast by the Susse Frères foundry; the sculpture shows a young Neapolitan fisherboy, who sits on a naturalistic base, crouched holding a shell to his ear; set on a marble plinth and signed ‘J. B. Carpeaux’ and with Susse Frères foundry marks.
This exquisite antique French sculpture presents a unique opportunity to collect one of the original models of the young Neapolitan fisherboy by Carpeaux. The original model for this delicate antique bronze sculpture of a fisher boy was purchased by Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, in 1863, but Carpeaux created a limited number of reproductions and variations in marble and bronze, of which the present bronze offered by Mayfair Gallery is one. Most of Carpeaux copies of the original are held in prestigious museums; there is a copy, for example, in the Samuel H. Kress Collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.