Antique Limoges Bisque Porcelain Busts of Brongniart Children After Houdon by Tharaud- a Pair

Description

These Rare Early 20th Century Limoge Bisque Porcelain busts of the Brongniart Children according to Houdon by Tharaud are made … more These Rare Early 20th Century Limoge Bisque Porcelain busts of the Brongniart Children according to Houdon by Tharaud are made of unglazed, white porcelain and sit upon a cobalt blue porcelain sèvres underlined by golden fillets and set upon a gilded bronze doré ormolu base. These busts were produced at Tharaud’s Limoge factory in France and are marked underneath the base with C Tharaud in gold and LIMOGES FRANCE in green. Very few of these are known to exist today.

These busts derived from a masterpiece of children's portraiture by the French Neoclassical Sculpturist, Jean-Antoine Houdon. The original Bust of Louise Brongniart (1772-1845) was made of terracotta in 1777 and is exhibited in the Louvre in Paris. Houdon's busts of Louise and her brother Alexandre, the children of architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, a prominent French architect who designed the Bourse de Commerce (old Stock Exchange) in Paris, became very popular in the 19th and 20th centuries and were reproduced in bronze, porcelain biscuit and marble.

Camille Tharaud was a French ceramist active in Limoges (1878-1956). He is particularly known for his researches on colored glazes. In 1920, he acquired the Louis Tharaud factory in Limoges, where he continued his researches on colored glazes. Tharaud participated in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1925 and in the Salon des artistes décorateurs from 1927.

Dimensions:
Height: 8.27 in (21 cm)
Width: 4.3 in (10.9 cm)
Depth: 2.96 in (7.5 cm)
*The bust of Alexandre is slightly smaller. less