CELINE LEPAGE (1882-1927)

As a young artist, Celine Lepage spent some formative years in Tunisia and Morocco with her husband, a young officer. On her return to Paris, she created four sculptures influenced by her experiences abroad and exhibited them at the 1919 Salon d'Automne and in 1923 at the Salon des Tuileries. Her work was such a success that she was asked to participate in the design of the Pomone pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs. At the same exhibition she created bas-reliefs on the theme of novelty for Paul Follot at the Bon Marche exhibition.

Before her death at the age of 35 Celine Lepage had agreed for La Manufacture National de Sèvres to produce an edition of ten examples of `La Cueillette des Oranges'. Originally designed in 1922, an example was included in the Exposition Coloniale in Paris in 1930 together with another of her sculptures, `La Mendiante de Marakech'. Only five examples of the edition were completed before the molds were damaged by bombing during World War II, leaving the edition of ten ultimately unfinished..

Another pedestal from this edition is in the permanent collection of the Musée National de la Céramique, Sèvres.