Have one like this?
Upload a photo for a free check of what yours may be worth.
Lot description
Antique, 19th Century Pierre Alexandre (Alexander) Schoenewerk (French 1820-1885) Bronze Sculpture. Finely detailed, depicting a seated maiden with a tortoise shell lyre. Measures - 13 1/2" high x 17" long. Signed on base. Pierre Alexandre Schoenewerk (1820-1885) was a Romantic French sculptor. He was born on February 18, 1820, the son of an immigrant tailor, precluding him from competing later in his life for the Prix de Rome. Schoenewerk suffered from mental illness and in 1866 he was confined to a mental ward at the Asylum of Charenton, France. After spending two and half years in the institution, he was released and married the widow of one his friends, the French engraver Adolphe Pierre Riffaut (1821-1859). After ten years of marriage, Schoenewerk's wife became mentally unstable. The artist suffered from depression, and distraught with the reception of his work at the 1885 Paris Salon committed suicide on July 23, 1885, throwing himself off the third-floor of his home.