Son of a stone mason, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was born in Valenciennes in 1827, and began his formation in the atelier of the local sculptor, Victor Liet. He enrolled in at Ecole des Beaux- Arts in Paris in 1844 and simultaneously entered the ateliers of François Rude and Francisque Duret (1804-1865) in the City of Light. From the end of the 1840s, he showed regularly at the Salons, where he received many distinctions. In 1854, he was awarded the prestigious prix de Rome with his plaster, Hector implorant les Dieux en faveur de son fils Astyanax (Hector imploring the gods in favour of his son Astanyax) and departed shortly thereafter for the Eternal City which was to have an immense influence on him. It was there that he discovered Michelangelo, whose work he would greatly admire for the rest of his life, and whose influence can be seen in a number of his sculptures including his celebrated Ugolin et ses fils (1857-1861).

Considered among Carpeaux’s canon of iconic works, Jeune fille à la coquille was conceived in 1864 as pendant to his celebrated Le pêcheur à la coquille, first modelled in 1857 while the artist was studying at the French Academy in Rome and ultimately acquired by Napoleon III for the Tuileries. The original plaster, now in the Musee d’Orsay (RF 1317), was shown in the Eternal City to great acclaim and then sent to Paris as proof of the sculptor’s artistic formation in Italy. In his creation of Le pêcheur, Carpeaux was purportedly inspired by a puckish fishing boy he observed on the beach of Naples in 1856. However, it was not until 1863 that Carpeaux finally conceived an equally inspired and whimsical pendant figure. In a letter and drawing from the same year addressed to the artist Bruno Cherier, Carpeaux described his progress on his iconic Ugolino while also conceiving the present work: ‘je fais en même temps un pendant à mon Pêcheur à la coquille, une jeune fille de 11 ans au bord de la mer, se coiffant d’une coquille sur la tête’ (J. Draper, E. Papet, ed., Passions of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, New York, 2014, cat. 43, p. 318). The work appears to have been conceived both with and without a net draped upon the girl’s lap. The original plaster for the netted version, dating to 1867, is preserved in the Musée des Beaux Arts de Valenicennes (S.90.13). The sitter, almost certainly Anna Foucart, the daughter of a Valenciennes lawyer who was Carpeaux's friend and patron, additionally inspired Carpeaux’s 1866 bust of La rieuse Napolitaine. Carpeaux completed a marble version of the model for the 1867 Salon, which was acquired by Empress Eugénie to join Le pêcheur at the Palais des Tuileries and is now in the National Gallery, Washington DC (NGA 1943.4.90). Another marble example, dated 1873, was sold Collection Fabius, Sotheby’s, Paris, 26 November 2011, lot 48.

The present work is a potential rediscovery of the artist’s Salon model shown in Paris in 1864 and subsequently with its plaster pendant Le pêcheur à la coquille until the latter was given by Amélie Carpeaux to the Louvre and ultimately displayed at the Musée d’Orsay from 1986. That plaster, probably the one offered here, continued to be exhibited in various retrospectives and Expositions until sold in Carpeaux’s atelier sale in 1913 where its whereabouts was previously unknown. An enduring model, much like its pendant, La jeune fille à la coquille was produced in terracotta, marble and bronze namely by the prolific fondeur Susse Frères following the artist’s death.