Charles-Auguste Lebourg (French, 1829–1906)
Young Girl with Garland, 1866
Terracotta
Dimensions: 44 × 13¼ × 11 in.
This graceful terracotta sculpture portrays a young girl with flowers gathered in the folds of her garment, leaning gently against a tree trunk. Her downcast gaze and modest posture reflect the 19th-century French taste for idealized, sentimental subjects in domestic sculpture.
The piece is signed and dated on the base: CH. LE Bourg 1866. Its sculptor, Charles-Auguste Lebourg, was a respected academic artist who achieved lasting fame as the creator of the Wallace fountains, designed in 1872 to provide free, clean drinking water across Paris. These fountains remain among the most recognizable features of the city’s streetscape today.
This sculpture demonstrates Lebourg’s refined modeling and expressive handling of terracotta, a medium often used for domestic and preparatory works in the 19th century.
