Editing Alexandre Falguière

{{Short description|French sculptor and painter (1831–1900)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2023}}
[[File:Falguiere sculpteur.jpg|thumb|200px|Alexandre Falguière (portrait by {{ill|Alexis Axilette|fr}})]]

'''Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguière''' ({{IPA|fr|ʒɑ̃ alɛksɑ̃dʁ ʒozɛf falɡjɛʁ}}; also given as '''Jean-Joseph-Alexandre Falguière''', or in short '''Alexandre Falguière''') (7 September 1831{{snd}}20 April 1900) was a French sculptor and painter.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Falguière, Jean Alexandre Joseph|volume=10|page=147}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[Image:Alexandre falguiere's statue winner of the cockfight version with long drape vbig.jpg|thumb|200px|Falguière's ''Victor of the Cockfight'', book engraving {{circa|1900}}, with added drapery]]

Falguière was born in [[Toulouse]]. A pupil of the [[École des Beaux-Arts]], he won the [[Prix de Rome]] in 1859; he was awarded the medal of honor at the [[Paris Salon]] in 1868 and was appointed [[Officer of the Legion of Honor]] in 1878.<ref name=EB1911/>

Falguière's first [[Bronze sculpture|bronze statue]] of importance was ''Le Vainqueur au Combat de Coqs (Victor of the [[Cockfight]])'' (1864), and ''[[Tarcisius]] the Christian Boy-Martyr'' followed in 1867; both were exhibited in the [[Luxembourg Museum]]<ref name=EB1911/> and are now in the [[Musée d'Orsay]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000049612.html |title=Vainqueur au combat de coqs |access-date=2006-11-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061025195644/http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000049612.html |archive-date=25 October 2006 }}</ref> His more important monuments are those to [[Admiral Courbet]] (1890) at [[Abbeville]] and the famous [[Joan of Arc]]. Other works include ''Eve'' (1880), ''Diana'' (1882 and 1891), ''Woman and Peacock'' (a. k. a. ''[[Hera|Juno]] and The Peacock''), and ''The Poet'', astride his [[Pegasus]] spreading wings for flight. He sculpted ''The Dancer'', based on [[Cléo de Mérode]] which today is also in the [[Musée d'Orsay]].
In 1870 he helped create the snow sculpture, ''[[La statue de la Résistance]]''.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Eckstein | first1 = Bob | author-link1 = Bob Eckstein | title = The History of the Snowman | url = https://archive.org/details/historyofsnowman00ecks | url-access = registration | chapter = The Revolution of 1870: The Snowman's French Roll |year=2007 | publisher = Gallery Books | isbn = 978-1-4169-4066-1}}</ref>

To these works should be added his monuments to [[Cardinal Lavigerie]] and to ''[[Statue of the Marquis de Lafayette (Washington, D.C.)|Marquis de Lafayette]]'' (in Washington, DC), and his statues of [[Alphonse de Lamartine]] (1876) and [[Vincent de Paul|St Vincent de Paul]] (1879), as well as the ''Honoré de Balzac'', which he executed for the [[Société des gens de lettres]] on their rejection of that by [[Auguste Rodin]]; and the busts of [[Carolus-Duran]] and [[Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin]] (1896).<ref name=EB1911/>

Falguière was a painter as well as a sculptor. His ''Wrestlers'' (1875) and ''Fan and Dagger'' (1882; a defiant Spanish woman) were in the Luxembourg, and other pictures of importance are ''The Beheading of St John the Baptist'' (1877), ''The Sphinx'' (1883), ''Acis and Galatea'' (1885), ''Old Woman and Child'' (1886) and ''In the Bull Slaughter-House''.<ref name=EB1911/>

Falguière also taught; among his students were [[Francis Edwin Elwell]], [[Ernest Henri Dubois]], [[Julien Caussé]], [[Laurent Marqueste]], [[Henri Crenier]] and [[Théophile Barrau]].

Falguière became a member of the [[Institut de France]] ([[Académie des Beaux-Arts]]) in 1882.<ref name=EB1911/>

Falguière died in Paris in 1900 and was interred there in the [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]], where his monument is by his pupil Marqueste.

==See also==
* [[Léonce Bénédite]] (biographer)
* [[List of works by Alexandre Falguière]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Alexandre Falguière|Alexandre Falguière}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Alexandre Falguière |sopt=w}}
* {{in lang|fr}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20040708062352/http://www.insecula.com/contact/A005521.html Insecula: index to pages displaying Falguière's work] (it may be necessary to close an advertising window to view this page)
* {{FrenchSculptureCensus}}

{{Use British English|date=November 2010}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falguiere, Alexandre}}
[[Category:1831 births]]
[[Category:1900 deaths]]
[[Category:Artists from Toulouse]]
[[Category:Painters from Occitania (administrative region)]]
[[Category:Academic art]]
[[Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery]]
[[Category:19th-century French painters]]
[[Category:French male painters]]
[[Category:Prix de Rome for sculpture]]
[[Category:École des Beaux-Arts alumni]]
[[Category:Members of the Académie des beaux-arts]]
[[Category:Officers of the Legion of Honour]]
[[Category:19th-century French sculptors]]
[[Category:French male sculptors]]
[[Category:19th-century French male artists]]