Louise Catherine Breslau, Swiss
Cop By Day. Sculptor By Night. Catch All the Action This Fall on NBC’s “Busts!,” 1886-87
Oil on canvas
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Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived, if necessary), here, here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, and here (bio portion of Lexicon article Google translated, if necessary), perhaps in addition to what’s in her Wikipedia page (Google translated French Wikipedia page has more).
/// Here we see Sculptor Jean Carriès in
his own Studio, where he has been
working on a large bust.
Has a sharp stick been thrust
through its head out the throat near its chin?
/// No, I’m certain that isn’t the case.
This is Frans Hals’ head, shoulders and face.
Not impaled. The illusion
(which had caused my confusion)
made by shadows cast in the wrong place.
/// Still, this sculptor Ms. Breslau portrayed
was well known for grotesques which he made.
He would sculpt “Horror Masks”
and bizarre stoneware flasks
with expressions of torment displayed.
/// “Why is Jean staring at me?” you ask.
Carriès has a difficult task.
He seeks faces bizarre
and he sees that you are
fit to pose for his next Horror Mask.
/// I don’t think Jean deserves to be scolded
for the agonized faces he molded.
He’d seen art Japanese,
and he based work on these.
Thus his love of weird faces unfolded.
/// Louise Breslau, the painter, appears
to have earned the respect of her peers.
She spent most of her life
with muse, model, (and “wife”),
Madeleine— mate for forty-plus years.