Belle Époque sculpture. France, ca. 1880.
"Jeunesse.
Carved alabaster.
Size: 31 x 30 x 17 cm.
Sculpture in carved alabaster of the Belle Époque period and style, representing the bust of a young lady with thick hair contained in a curly up-do, undulating in harmony with a floral diadem of beautiful petals. The sculpture has some gilded details.
The term Belle Époque refers to the period in European history between the last decade of the 19th century and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. It reflects a nostalgic vision that tended to idealise the pre-1914 past as a paradise lost after the brutal trauma of the First World War. In art, it was the time of development of the three pictorial currents that would mark the 20th century: Expressionism, Fauvism and Cubism, as well as Modernism. While avant-garde painting and large-scale sculpture were dominated by the avant-garde, decorative sculpture and objets d'art were mainly influenced by modernism in all its forms.