Auguste Clesinger

Auguste Clesinger was born in Besancon, in the Doubs department of France. His father, Georges Philippe, was a sculptor and trained Auguste in art. Auguste first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1843 with a bust of vicomte Jules de Valdahon and last exhibited there in 1864. At the 1847 Salon, he created a sensation with his Woman bitten by a serpent, produced from life-casts from his model Apollonie Sabatier (the pose being particularly suitable for such a method), thus reinforcing the scandal with an erotic dimension. Apppolonie Sabatier was a salonniere and the mistress of Charles Baudelaire and others. The sculpture's beauty was praised by Theophile Gautier: "Clesinger has resolved this problem of making beauty without cuteness, without affectation, without mannerism, with a head and a body of our own time, in which can be recognised his mistress, she is beautiful."

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