Ref.12932
Manufacture de Sèvres «Matinado », ceramic sculpture from a model by Félix CHARPENTIER, 1910

Our marble sculpture is a copy of the original model exhibited in the 1909 Salon des Artistes Français by Félix Charpentier (1858-1924), untitled « Matinado », morning in Italian. It was made by the Manufacture de Sèvres in 1910, as indicate the marks on the back. Félix Charpentier was an important sculptor in the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. After studying in the École des Beaux-Arts of Avignon, then in Paris, he shows in 1879, then regularly each year, his works in the Salon des Artistes français. He knows during all his career, a huge success and wins a silver medal in the International Exhibition of 1889, many medals for his sends to the Salon, very often bought by the State, and receives in April 1892, the Légion d’honneur. The plaster model of our sculpture depicting a stretching naked woman, was presented in the 1907 Salon des Artistes Français. Already considered as true masterpiece, the marble sculpture was ordered by the State to the sculptor in 1908, meaning one year before its official presentation to the Salon in 1909. This same year, the sculpture was attributed to Louvre Museum, then in 1911 to the Luxembourg Museum before being given in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Arras in 1926. For the plaster, also bought by the State, it was given to the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Histoire of Châteaudun. By knowing a true success, many reductions were made by the sculptor who had also a collaboration with the Manufacture de Sèvres to create in ceramic his most important sculptures like our beautiful awakened, which was very likely one of the first made. We can see one of the example on a photograph of the manufactory display in the Exposition Internationale urbaine de Lyon in 1914, and on another picture illustrating the article « La Manufacture de Sèvres à l’Exposition Internationale de Lyon » published in the newspaper Comœdia, on the 24th of january 1914.