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(b Perleberg-Brandenburg, June 29, 1871; d Berlin, Jan 2, 1938).

German medallist, sculptor and writer. He trained in medal arts and sculpture at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Frankfurt am Main (1891–7) and in Paris (1897–9) at the Académie Julian. He dedicated himself to making medals and assimilated the naturalistic and Impressionist styles current in French art, as in his baptismal medal Let the Child Come to Me (1898–9; Frankfurt am Main, Mus. Ksthandwk). In 1899 Bosselt began to gain considerable public recognition in Germany for his medals, which after 1901 became more stylized and decorative. By 1905 he had produced a large body of work, including medals and several plaques of, mainly commissioned, portraits and exhibition notices. In addition, he promoted the revival of medal arts in Germany through his published writings. He was also widely known as a gifted Jugendstil craftsman as a result of his stay from 1899 to 1903 at the Künstler-Kolonie in Darmstadt, where he developed a close friendship with fellow worker Peter Behrens. Bosselt’s output in Darmstadt consisted of jewellery and domestic items of decorative metalwork, which feature sculpted bronze figurines (e.g. table lamp, ...

(b Paris, June 10, 1856; d Neuilly, Hauts-de-Seine, March 3, 1909).

French sculptor, medallist and designer. After studying with the medal engraver Hubert Ponscarmé, he first exhibited at the Salon of 1879. His first significant work, exhibited in 1883, was a bas-relief, Young Woman Suckling her Child; the final version of this, in marble, was later ordered by the State (Aix-en-Provence, Mus. Granet). This work contained most elements of the artist’s aesthetic—the choice of a familiar subject from life, treated in a natural and robust style, in the manner of Aimé-Jules Dalou. From the start Charpentier had a clear mastery of bas-relief, and his best work is in modelled reliefs—medals, small portrait medallions of great warmth and integrity (e.g. Paris, Mus. d’Orsay), mural decorations and works on a monumental scale, such as the frieze of The Bakers, modelled in 1889 and executed in 1897 in enamelled bricks by the firm of Muller (Paris, Square Scipion).

Charpentier exhibited with the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and later the Salon d’Automne, both in Paris, and from ...

(b Paris, Feb 21, 1865; d 1932).

French medallist. He trained in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Augustin-Alexandre Dumont, Gabriel-Jules Thomas, Henri-Emile Allouard (1844–1929) and Hubert Ponscarme, winning the Prix de Rome for medal engraving in 1893. His Orpheus at the Entrance to the Underworld, struck for the Exposition Universelle of 1900, was immensely popular and is to this day one of the best known of French ...

(b Paris, May 26, 1860; d after 1913).

French medallist and sculptor. He studied under the French sculptors Augustin-Alexandre Dumont, Emile Thomas (1817–82), Hippolyte Moreau and Léon Delhomme (1841–95). He started exhibiting at the Salon Champs-Elysées in 1887 and was made a Sociétaire des Artistes Français in 1896. At the turn of the century be became a professor at the Ecole Supérieure Professionelle Estienne in Paris. Deschamps’s output consists mainly of relief plaques and medals depicting allegorical subjects and portraits, such as the relief plaque of a young girl ...

(Arthur)

(b Rådvad, nr Copenhagen, Aug 31, 1866; d Copenhagen, Oct 2, 1935).

Danish silversmith and sculptor. He was the son of a blacksmith, and at the age of 14 he was apprenticed to the goldsmith A. Andersen in Copenhagen. In 1884 he became a journeyman and in 1887 he enrolled at the Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, where he studied sculpture with Theobald Stein (1829–1901), Bertel Thorvaldsen’s successor; a bronze cast of his Harvester of 1891 is in the courtyard of the Georg Jensen silversmithy in Copenhagen. After graduating in 1892 Jensen took up ceramics, working with Joachim Petersen (1870–1943), and in 1900 his work was awarded an honourable mention at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. In the same year he received a grant to travel in France and Italy; it was during this trip that he became interested in the applied arts. On his return to Copenhagen, Jensen worked for the silversmith Mogens Ballin, and in 1904 he opened his own workshop, primarily making jewellery. His brooch of ...

[Massignon, Pierre-Henry-Ferdinand]

(b Paris, Aug 2, 1855; d Paris, Jan 18, 1922).

French painter, sculptor, medallist and designer. While studying medicine and chemistry he took up drawing and model-making, and then became interested in painting; from 1873 to 1878 and again in 1889 he was registered at the Académie Julian, Paris, receiving advice on painting from Alfred Roll, and exhibiting at the Paris Salon from 1884 to 1889. A competition in 1888 for a monument to Danton inspired him to try his hand at sculpture. The boldness of his entry (drawing, Lyon, Mus. B.-A.; plaster fragment, Troyes, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.) brought him to the attention of Jules Dalou, who encouraged him. Roche went on to produce a number of fountain figures, including April (exh. 1893; executed in bronze and pâte de verre, 1906; Paris, Mus. Galliéra, gardens) and Hercules Diverting the River Alpheus (executed in lead, by the firm of Thiébaut, and glazed earthenware, 1900; Paris, Luxembourg Gardens).

Roche was fascinated by the possibilities of different new materials and invented a kind of relief colour print that he called ‘...

(b Turin, Dec 8, 1871; d Rome, Jan 16, 1954).

Italian sculptor, medallist and printmaker. He studied ornamental modelling at the Accademia Albertina in Turin under Odoardo Tabacchi and first exhibited in 1891 at the Turin Promotrice, where he continued to show his work almost every year. From 1896 to 1898 he worked in the studio of Leonardo Bistolfi, who had a strong influence on his development. In 1898 he received his first important commission, a decorative group representing the Dora River for the Fountain of the Months in the Parco del Valentino, Turin. At the Esposizione Internazionale di Arte Decorativa held in Turin in 1902, Rubino created decorative groups representing Dance, Sculpture and Painting (destr.; repr. in Thovez) for the pavilion designed by Raimondo D’Aronco, in an Art Nouveau style close to that of Bistolfi; they earned him the gold medal. He exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1899, 1903, 1905, 1907) and at the Amatori e Cultori in Rome (...

Russian estate lying 18 km from Smolensk. It was acquired in 1893 by Prince Vyacheslav Tenishev (1843–1903) and his wife Mariya Tenisheva. In the 19th century and the early 20th Princess Tenisheva, with the help of her husband’s capital (he was a leading industrialist and businessman), turned Talashkino into a unique artistic centre in the forefront of the revival of peasant handicrafts. She founded various workshops for joinery, ceramics, wood-carving, wood painting, metal chasing and fabric dyeing, where local craftsmen and apprentices from the peasantry worked under professional artists. They manufactured different objects for everyday life, including towels, clothes, wooden bowls, plates and toys. This took place in the context of the mutual enrichment of folk crafts and professional Art Nouveau in Russia at that time. Tenisheva formed a large collection of objects from traditional folk life, and of artistic products. Originally they were housed on the estate, where a museum, Russkaya Starina (‘Russian antiquity’), was opened to all in ...

(b Brussels, April 16, 1858; d Brussels, Dec 13, 1929).

Belgian jeweller, designer and sculptor . The son of the master goldsmith Louis Wolfers (1820–92), he graduated from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1875 and entered his father’s workshop as an apprentice, where he acquired a comprehensive technical training. Influenced by the Rococo Revival and Japanese art, in the 1880s he created sensitively curved pieces in gold and silver decorated with asymmetrically distributed floral motifs, which heralded the Art Nouveau style (e.g. ewer, Le Maraudeur, c. 1880; Brussels, Musées Royaux A. & Hist.). After 1890 he produced two kinds of work: goldsmithing and jewellery designs for production by Wolfers Frères and one-off pieces that were produced to his own designs in the workshop that he had established c. 1890–92. Typical of the latter are Art Nouveau goldsmiths’ work and jewellery (e.g. orchid hair ornament, 1902; London, V&A), crystal vases carved into cameos and ivory pieces. Ivory was then in plentiful supply from the Congo, and from ...