Flora Kneeling

During the mid and late nineteenth century, sculptors, such as Carpeaux were inspired by classical subject matter, compositions and styles. Carpeaux borrowed the pose of the figure of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, from a well-known antique statue, Crouching Venus. The animated face of the young girl was copied from a bust Carpeaux executed of Anna Foucart, the daughter of a childhood friend of the artist's. Carpeaux later employed the figure of Flora Kneeling in one of his greatest architectural projects, the sculptural decoration of the Pavilion de Flora of the Louvre, which was completed in 1865. Carpeaux experimented with many different figures of Flora, and this version may have been executed after the public success of the Pavilion de Flora.