Marble bust of Madame Récamier after Chinard

This superb carved marble bust is an especially fine copy after the original sculpture by Joseph Chinard. The subject is Madame Récamier who, during the early years of the 19th Century, found fame as a French beauty whose salon was perhaps the most renowned in the country. Madame Récamier, not only a beauty but also an intellectual force, was a champion of Neoclassicism, and she had her portrait taken by many of the leading artists of the day—including Jacques-Louis David. It is befitting that Chinard’s 1805 masterpiece has become one of the most celebrated pieces of Neoclassical sculpture to emerge from the 19th Century. Given this, the piece served as a popular subject for other artists to copy, and the present sculpture is a fine example of that practice.

The sculpture portrays Madame Récamier draped in a revealing fragment of light fabric, the folds of which are grasped by her arms before her breast. The sculpture is exceptionally sensual in feeling and accomplished in the delicacy of its execution.