CAST AFTER EUGENE AIZELIN FROM THE MODEL BY MICHELANGELO, SECOND HALF 19TH CENTURY

Eugène-Antoine Aizelin (1821-1902) was a successful and highly honoured French sculptor. A pupil of Étienne-Jules Ramey and Augustin-Alexandre Dumont at the École des Beaux-Arts, he pursued a successful career and produced sculpture markedly classical in style, similar to his contemporaries who had studied at the Académie de France in Rome. He received numerous commissions from the state and from the city of Paris for the decoration of public buildings, in particular, for the three great Parisian building projects of the Second Empire, namely the new Louvre, the Opéra and the Hôtel de Ville. He also exhibited genre sculpture, widely circulated in bronze editions, many of which were cast in the foundry of Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-92).