Ernest Christophe
{{Short description|French sculptor}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Ernest Christophe
| image = Ernest Christophe.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Photograph of Christophe by Nadar
| birth_name = Ernest Louis Aquilas Christophe
| birth_date = 15 January 1827
| birth_place = Loches, Indre-et-Loire, France
| death_date = 14 January 1892
| death_place = 17th arrondissement of Paris, France
| resting_place = Batignolles Cemetery
| resting_place_coordinates = {{Coord|48.897|2.314|type:landmark|display=inline}}
| nationality = French
| known_for = Sculpture
| notable_works = The Human Comedy
}}
Ernest Louis Aquilas Christophe (15 January 1827 – 14 January 1892) was a French sculptor, a student of François Rude and a friend of Charles Baudelaire.Bénézit 1999, p. 626 Rude assigned him to help with the bronze recumbent effigy to Éléonore-Louis Godefroi Cavaignac, a French politician. The funerary monument is signed Rude et Christophe, son jeune élève (Rude and Christophe, his young pupil).Lindsay 2000, p. 2 His Le Masque (the Mask) sculpture won Christophe third place in the Paris Salon in 1876 and two of his sculptures, La Fatalité (Fatality) and Le Baiser suprême (The supreme kiss) were acquired by the Musée du Luxembourg.
Christophe developed a deep friendship with Cuban-born French poet José-Maria de Heredia and made him his testamentary legatee. De Heredia collected part of Ernest's library after his death.Mortelette 2006, p. 113 He is buried in the Batignolles Cemetery.
Notable works
One of Christophe's most recognized works is the Human Comedy sculpture that he submitted in 1876 to the Paris Salon. The Statue was acquired and exposed in the Jardin des Tuileries in 1877 and was moved to the Orsay museum since 1986 after restoration works in the Louvre.{{cite web | url=http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/catalogue-des-oeuvres/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=005854&cHash=49d0f4543e | title=La Comédie humaine | publisher=Musée d'Orsay | work=Fiche Oeuvre | date=2006 | accessdate=25 December 2015 | author=Musée d'Orsay | author-link=Musée d'Orsay }} The sculpture inspired Christophe's friend Charles Baudelaire to write his poem Le Masque (the Mask).Pingeot 2000, p. 40 The sculptor renamed his statue "The Mask" with a nod to Baudelaire's ekphrastic poem.McGowan 2008, p.357 The work depicts a semi-nude woman whose smiling face is really a mask that hides "a face of sorrow".Wright 2005, p. 34
La Fatalité, a statue executed by Christophe in 1885, inspired another French poet Leconte de Lisle's poem of the same title.Mortelette 2006, p. 196
Gallery
File:The Human Comedy Mask by Ernest Christophe.jpg |The Human Comedy - The Mask, 1876, marble, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
File:Musée de Tessé.JPG|Le baiser suprême
File:Bagnères-de-Luchon statue Fortune.jpg|La Fatalité
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TXm6OgAACAAJ | title=Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays par un groupe d'écrivains spécialistes français et étrangers | publisher=Gründ | author=Bénézit, Emmanuel | author-link=Emmanuel Bénézit | year=1999 |volume=3| language= French| isbn=9782700030433}}
- {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pONxfBACLPUC | title=Funerary Arts and Tomb Cult: Living with the Dead in France, 1750–1870 | publisher=Ashgate Publishing | author=Lindsay, Suzanne G. | year=2012 | isbn=9781409422617}}
- {{cite book |last=McGowan|first=James|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HEB3-GIiI98C| title=The Flowers of Evil| publisher=Oxford University Press| year=2008 |chapter= Explanatory notes|series=Oxford World's Classics |editor-last=Baudelaire|editor-first=Charles|editor-link=Charles Baudelaire| location= | pages= | isbn=9780199535583}}
- {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H7n6NULpMvEC | title=José-Maria de Heredia: poète du Parnasse|series=Collection Colloques de la Sorbonne | publisher=Presses Paris Sorbonne | author=Mortelette, Yann | year=2006| language=French| isbn=9782840504627}}
- {{cite book |last=Pingeot|first=Anne|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8N_17GFw3dkC| title=From Rodin to Giacometti: Sculpture and Literature in France, 1880–1950 | publisher=Rodopi| year=2000 |chapter= Sculpture and literature in nineteenth-century France |editor-last=Aspley|editor-first=Keith| location= | pages= | isbn=9789042004832}}
- {{cite book | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HcRJT5Cqd4AC&pg=PA34| chapter=Baudelaire's poetic journal in Les Fleurs du Mal|first=Barbara|last=Wright|title=The Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire | publisher=Cambridge University Press | editor-last=Lloyd|editor-first=Rosemary | year=2005 | isbn=9780521537827 | series=Cambridge Companions to Literature}}
{{commons category|Ernest Christophe}}
{{Authority control (arts)}}
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Category:19th-century French sculptors
Category:French male sculptors