Charles-auguste fraikin · (1817–1893)
The Bumblebee
Technical sheet
| ARTIST | Charles-Auguste Fraikin |
| DATE | ca. 1860 |
| material | White Carrara marble • original column in wood painted marble trompe-l’oeil |
| DIMENSIONS | 74 x 60 x 38 cm |
| Signature | C.A. FRAIKIN |
| PROVENANCE | |
| CONSERVATION |
About the work
This sculpture marries romanticism with limitless mastery. Rarely in sculpture, especially where marble is involved, has such a degree of harmony been achieved between the psychological, the anecdotal and the technical elements that together lend a representation its lively verisimilitude. Here there appears to be a real child in action, flushing with life and innocence.
The refinement with which the hands and feet, the correct deportment and especially the facial expression are portrayed is astonishing and characteristic of the artist’s talent. No less admirable is the feat the sculptor has performed with the outspread pinafore — in marble! All manner of finely executed details, the crawling bumblebee included, add to the charm of this nineteenth-century creation.
Fraikin produced several marble versions for the foreign market, in Philadelphia, Chicago and London. The original plaster is held in the Fraikin Museum in Herentals, and the sculpture stands upon its own original column.
the ARTIST
CHarles-auguste fraikin
Herentals, 1817 — 1893, Schaerbeek
A great Belgian Neoclassical sculptor, Fraikin abandoned a career as an apothecary to devote himself to sculpture after encountering the marbles of Guillaume Geefs. Trained in the studio of Pieter Puyenbroeck and later at the Academy of Brussels, he won a gold medal at the 1845 Brussels Salon for his “Captured Love”.
A member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and a Knight of the Legion of Honour, he received important official commissions, including the funerary monument to Queen Louise-Marie and the figures of the Counts of Egmond and Hoorne. Internationally recognised, his works were reproduced as far afield as Florence and Carrara. In 1888 he bequeathed a collection of ninety-four sculptures to his native town.
