Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Sculptor of smiling faces and a tireless draughtsman, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's own fate was not such a happy one. His brief career was brought to an abrupt end by a painful illness. The child of a bricklayer and a Valenciennes lacemaker, he went on to become the favoured artist of Napoléon III and was involved in some of the greatest projects of the Second Empire, among them the Pavillon de Flore and the Opéra Garnier. He was appointed as the portraitist to the imperial court, yet official art did not absorb him: he painstakingly painted, drew and sculpted his wife, children, close friends and everyday life in the streets, imitating the old masters such as Michelangelo. Carpeaux's smile is tinged with melancholy and anguish.
