Pierre Carrier-Belleuse (French, 1851-1932)
Lot 81

Pierre Carrier-Belleuse (French, 1851-1932)

Ballerina

Closed20 January 2016

Price Realised

GBP 5,000

More Information

How to sell

Pierre Carrier-Belleuse (French, 1851-1932)
Ballerina
signed 'Pierre Carrier-Belleuse.' (lower right)
pastel on canvas
33 ¾ x 45 ¼ in. (86 x 115 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 29 Nov 1984, lot 818.

Specialist note

Pierre Carrier-Belleuse was one of four artists born to Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824-1887), a thriving sculptor. Pierre studied at the l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, under Alexandre Cabanel (1824-1881) and Pierre Victor Galland (1822-1892). The influence of their soft palates and classical style can be seen in the present lot. He exhibited in the Salon de Paris from 1875, receiving an honourable mention in 1887 and a silver medal at the Universalle Exposition in 1889.

He flourished in his depictions of Ballerinas, where his favoured medium of pastel allowed him to capture the movement of their dance.
Carrier-Belleuse enjoyed working on a large scale. Between 1914 and 1916, Carrier-Belleuse and Auguste François-Marie Gorguet proposed, planned and co-created what was considered world's largest painting:  Panthéon de la Guerre (45 ft. high and 402 ft. in circumference) containing almost 6,000 portraits, painted mostly from life.