Antique Art Nouveau Female Carrara Marble Gilt Bronze Bust Statue Sculpture by Gustave Van Vaerenbergh 1900

A very beautiful antique Art Nouveau bronzed Carrara marble sculpture bust of a young maiden circa 1900, by Gustave Van Vaerenbergh (1871-1927).
The sculpture portrays a beautiful young maiden made from Cararra marble, she is wearing a laurel wreath in her hair. She wears a bronzed bodice with leaf decoration in relief and is raised on a varigated grey & white socle base. The sculpture is signed to the rear " G. V. Vaerenbergh" and numbered "1173", the bust is in excellent condition.

Gustave Van Vaerenbergh attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium from 1888 to 1890. Like many artists from a modest background (he was the son of a shoemaker) , Gustave Van Vaerenbergh went to work in companies where he could use his artistic talent and education for commercial purposes.
In 1901 he moved to Saint-Josse-ten-Noode , and a year later to Schaerbeek where he would live for the rest of his life. He went to work there as a " mouleur en plâtre " (modeller or maker of matrices for plaster statues) at the company A. Carli Frères in the L'Olivierstraat in Schaerbeek, a company that produced commercial statues. This successful company, which was active from the beginning to the middle of the twentieth century , initially had about 20 employees and at its peak about 100 employees. The statues were distributed worldwide. Antonio Carli, a sculptor, was the founder of the Atelier A. Carli Frères, together with family members. They came from Bagni di Lucca ( Italy ), their company specialized in making religious statues, inexpensive decorative statues, garnitures and vases in plaster and terracotta, and more expensive classical Art Nouveau statues in stone and bronze. 
It is striking that several relatives of Gustave Van Vaerenbergh (his brother and sister, later also his parents) and other residents of Ghent and the surrounding area went to live near Schaarbeek during that period. Among others, his brother Octave ("mouleur en plâtre") also worked at A. Carli Frères. In 1906  Gustave Van Vaerenbergh had already been officially appointed as a sculptor in the company. As a sculptor he mainly made busts of young women in the Art Nouveau style, but also statues of children, animals and pierrots in marble , bronze , alabaster , earthenware and plaster . Noteworthy are the chryselephantines that can stand comparison with Art Nouveau statues by great sculptors. In addition, he also designed simple plaster garnish statues such as vases, clocks and figurines . In quality these works are far removed from his chryselephantines and marble and alabaster sculptures, but they were undoubtedly important for the commercial success of the A. Carli Frères company. The designs were undoubtedly often inspired by older popular works, e.g. the girl with the hat. In the commercial company there was undoubtedly little room for personal initiative, in addition work was also done to order, which is why an image of an existing work will often have been given as an example. Gustave Van Vaerenbergh succeeded, however, in creating one or more variants, clearly different from the source of inspiration and more beautiful than the original.
All the sculptures were numbered and then produced in series. In the overview catalogue of the works of Gustave Van Vaerenbergh by Florian Haberey, approximately 180 works by Gustave Van Vaerenbergh are listed with their own series number. This is undoubtedly only a fraction of the total number of his designs. These works were then reproduced. The stone sculptures of the same series are therefore always slightly different. Most of the sculptures were made in multiple alabaster with a marble base. A striking feature of his designs is a repetition of the same theme with slight variations, for example the position of the head or slightly different clothing. This points to the importance of the commercial aspects in his creations. It is likely that several employees of the company were responsible for the reproduction of the sculptures. Several sculptors were active in the company, Ricardo Aurilli worked in the company from 1905 to 1914.

Imperial

25 inches high × 18 inches wide × 9.5 inches deep

Metric

high × wide x deep

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