Alexandre Falguière

Alexandre Falguière studied at Beaux-Arts de Paris and French Academy in Rome. Training under Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and François Jouffroy is recorded. Julien Lorieux, Léon-Joseph Chavalliaud and Alexandre Laporte are recorded as having studied under Alexandre Falguière. The recorded working language is French. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris. Works named in the authority record are Bacchantes, Éventail et Poignard, Lutteurs, La Sasson, Fontaine Jean-Baptiste and Fontaine-réservoir Sainte-Marie. Work by Alexandre Falguière is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Nationalmuseum, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and Musée d'Orsay. Distinctions recorded are Prix de Rome and Commander of the Legion of Honour.

• Name — Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière • Born — 7 September 1831 • Birthplace — Toulouse, France • Died — 20 April 1900 • Place of death — Paris, France • Resting Place — Père Lachaise Cemetery • Education — École des Beaux-Arts • Known for — Sculpture, Painting

Falguière was born in Toulouse. A pupil of the École des Beaux-Arts, he won the Prix de Rome in 1859; he was awarded the medal of honor at the Paris Salon of 1868 and was appointed Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1878. Falguière's first bronze statue of importance was The Victor of the Cockfight (1864), and Tarcisius the Christian Boy-Martyr followed in 1867; both were exhibited in the Luxembourg Museum and are now in the Musée d'Orsay. His more important monuments are those to Admiral Courbet (1890) at Abbeville and the famous Joan of Arc. Other works include Eve (1880), Diana (1882 and 1891), Woman and Peacock (a.k.a. Juno and The Peacock), and The Poet, astride his Pegasus spreading wings for flight. He sculpted The Dancer, based on Cléo de Mérode which today is also in the Musée d'Orsay. In 1870 he helped create the snow sculpture, La statue de la Résistance. • Illustration — Falguière's The Victor of the Cockfight (1864) To these works should be added his monuments to Cardinal Lavigerie and to Marquis de Lafayette (in Washington, DC), and his statues of Alphonse de Lamartine (1876) and St Vincent de Paul (1879), as well as the Honoré de Balzac, which he executed for the Société des gens de lettres on their rejection of that by Auguste Rodin; and the busts of Carolus-Duran and Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin (1896). Falguière was a painter as well. His Wrestlers (1875) and Fan and Dagger (1882; a defiant Spanish woman) were in the Luxembourg, and other pictures of importance are The Beheading of St John the Baptist (1877), The Sphinx (1883), Acis and Galatea (1885), Old Woman and Child (1886) and In the Bull Slaughter-House. He also taught; among his students were Francis Edwin Elwell, Ernest Henri Dubois, Julien Caussé, Laurent Marqueste, Henri Crenier and Théophile Barrau. He became a member of the Institut de France (Académie des Beaux-Arts) in 1882. Falguière died in Paris in 1900 and was interred there in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, where his monument is by his pupil Marqueste.

Alexandre Falguière was recorded at birth as Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière. He also worked under the name Falguiere, Jean-Alexandre-Joseph. The authorities additionally record the headings Alexandre Falguiere, Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguière, Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguiere, Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière and Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguiere. His recorded language was French. He married Blanche Falguière. One child is recorded: Maurice-Alexandre-Alfred Falguière.

Works recorded as notable number 6: Bacchantes, Éventail et Poignard, Lutteurs, La Sasson, Fontaine Jean-Baptiste and Fontaine-réservoir Sainte-Marie.