"Comedienne", sculpture in patinated and cold painted bronze and ivory on an onyx base. Foundry stamp of Les Neveux de J. Lehmann
Demeter Chiparus (1886-1947) was born in Romania and arrived in Paris in 1912, after some time of apprenticeship, in Florence, with Raffaello Romanelli. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Antonin Mercié and Jean Boucher. He received an honorable mention at the Salon des Artistes Français.
He knows a very important commercial success and collaborates successfully with several founders like Etling or Les Neveux de J.Lehmann. He always keeps a very meticulous and demanding eye on his work and maintains close relationships with art founders.
His work is fully in line with the spirit of the interwar period, the carefree and light-hearted, the exuberance and luxury of the Roaring Twenties. Dance is also a recurring theme, reflecting the importance it had in the capital, between the omnipresent cabarets and the revolutionary Russian ballets.
The Second World War saw his commissions decline and he died soon after. His sculpture lost interest and went out of fashion and it was not until the 1970s that connoisseurs rediscovered his work and the richness and precision of his art.
