Send image Biography Private Collection

Presentation: Unmounted
SN: 1156
Silver, signed and stamped with foundry mark
15 x 15 in. (38 x 38 cm)
on a brown and grey patterned marble plinth
9 7/8 x 17 3/4 in. (25 x 45 cm.)

This cast, more commonly known as a bronze, was produced by Siot-decauiville, Fondeur, Paris ed. F659. A second silver cast is in the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina.

François-Raoul Larche was a French Art Nouveau sculptor best known for his numerous female figures, both nude and draped.

He was one of several artists inspired by the dancer Loie Fuller; his statue depicting Fuller dancing with part of her drapery billowing above and behind her head like a flame has become one of the icons on the Art Nouveau era.

Frome the Renaissance onwards Christ amongst the doctors has been a very popular subject with artists. The depiction here is unusally in so far as it only the head and shoulders of the adolescent Christ, rather than the more typically depicted scene at large.

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François-Raoul Larche 1860 - 1912

François-Raoul Larche (1860 Saint-André-de-Cubzac - 1912 Paris) was a French Art Nouveau sculptor whose work included several figures of Christ, but who may be better known for his numerous female figures, both nude and draped.

He was one of several artists inspired by the dancer Loie Fuller; one of his best-known statues depicts Fuller dancing with part of her drapery billowing above and behind her head like a flame.

Another well-known sculpture, Les Violettes, depicts a group of nude children with an older girl who may be their mother or older sister. Their bodies are entwined with flower stems and leaves and they are all wearing petal bonnets, suggesting that they are meant to represent the spirits of flowers.