Jean-Baptiste CarpeauxFrench, 1827–1875Dancing Figure
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Dancing Figure” now? Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Cambridge, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
Details
- Accession number
- 1935.27.A
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
In the life of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
The whole life11 May 1827
Born
1856–1859 · Education
French Academy in Rome
1856–1861
Rome: Michelangelo and street sketches
From January 1856 he lives at the Villa Medici and studies Donatello, Verrocchio, Raphael and Michelangelo; tired of academicism, he wanders the streets of Rome sketching and looking for living subjects — perhaps it is then that he resolves to make the ordinary life of people, their festivals and pastimes, the main subject of his art. Michelangelo remains his sun: when an artist feels pale and cold, he said, he should run to Michelangelo to warm himself.
1862
Returns to Paris and is presented at court
Back in Paris, he is presented to the imperial court by his friend and patron Eugène d’Alvin de Piennes, soon to become the Empress’s chamberlain, and becomes a sought-after portraitist, though he was never a court official. An admirer of Napoleon III, Carpeaux also contrived a face-to-face meeting with the emperor at Amiens, where he persuaded him to commission a marble statue.
12 October 1875
Died
29 November 1875 · Burial
Valenciennes (St Roch) Communal Cemetery
