A FRENCH TWO TONE ALABASTER CARVED MODEL OF A SEATED LADY, POSSIBLY MADAME RECAMIER

This sculpture is probably inspired after a portrait painting by Baron Francois Gerard, of the society beauty, Juliette Récamier, now in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (1805). Madame Récamier moved in the fashionable literary and political circles of the Directoire period, but was exiled from Paris due to her association with Madame de Staël and other famous artists, who at the time, were not exactly in favour the government of Napoleon I.