TWO BUSTS, ONE OF REMBRANDT AND ONE OF DÜRER,
France, 2nd half of the 19th century. Signed A. Carrier. Albert Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824–1887).
Plaster with terracotta-like overlay. On a later ebonized wooden base.
H 54 cm.

Carrier-Belleuse had his first important success in 1863, when Emperor Napoleon III bought the sculpture of the naked Bacchantine for the Tuileries. Prizes and honours followed, including the medal of honour and membership of the "Légion d'Honneur" in 1867, for the figure of the Messiah. Carrier-Belleuse received numerous public commissions from the city prefect E. Haussmann, who recruited various sculptors for larger projects, and supplied many figures for the Louvre, the "Théâtre Français", for the courtyard of the newly-built opera house and for the "Banque de la France".
(J.E. Hargrove, The Life and Work of A. Carrier-Belleuse, Los Angeles 1980).