Jean Baptiste Clesinger - Artist Info

About Jean Baptiste Clesinger

Name variants

Auguste Clesinger, Jean-Baptiste Clessinger
  • Biography

    Jean Baptiste Clesinger, known as Auguste, was born in Besancon in 1814, son of George Philippe, sculptor and stone mason. A pupil of his father's, he showed for the first time at the Paris Salon in 1843 (bust of Viscount Jules de Valdahon). His father had taken him to Rome in 1832 and he worked in Bertel Thorvaldsen's studio for a while. Upon his return to Paris he worked with David d'Angers maintaining a studio in Rome at the same time.

    He caused a scandal at the Salon of 1847 with his work entitled Woman with a Serpent. Model for this life size marble study of a nude was a well known courtesan Apollonie Sabatier, Baudelaire's mistress at the time. It is said that the scandal was orchest...

    But wait, there's more...

    Displaying 1,740 of 1,724 characters.

    Subscriber Members, please Sign In for full artist biographies and all services.

    For non-paying users, good news! Full text bios for all artists are available every Friday.

    If you are not currently a member, please See Details about membership.

** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at .

Share an image of the Artist: .