His Woman Bitten by a Snake caused a scandal at the Salon of 1847: the model, Apollonie Sabatier, was recognisable, and the sculptor was accused of having cast the body from life. That same year he married Solange, George Sand's daughter; two years later, it was he who was called for Chopin's tomb.
The story
Auguste Clésinger, the son of a sculptor from Besançon, made his name at a stroke, at the Salon of 1847, with a Femme piquée par un serpent, a woman stung by a snake, lying in a pose the public found less painful than voluptuous. The model, Apollonie Sabatier, was recognisable; the rumour of a cast taken from the living body completed the scandal, and the sculptor's fame.
That same year he married Solange, George Sand's daughter. The marriage soon failed and set the novelist against Chopin for good, since he had taken the daughter's side. Divorce being illegal in France at the time, it was a judicial separation that was pronounced against him in 1852, and made final in December 1854.
Yet when Chopin died in 1849 it was Clésinger they called on: he took the composer's death mask and carved the monument in Division 11, that weeping muse Euterpe over a broken lyre which is today one of the most visited graves in the cemetery.
He died in 1883 and lies in Division 10, below the chemin Denon, under a worn slab that carries two names only: his own and that of Remy de Gourmont. Berthe de Courrière, who was his model and his mistress before becoming the writer's companion, lies there too without being named.
On site, do not miss
A worn slab with two names, a few hundred metres from the tomb of Chopin that he sculpted.
Visitors' questions
Where is Auguste Clésinger's grave?
In Division 10 of Père-Lachaise, a little below the chemin Denon. The slab is very plain and carries only two names, the sculptor's and that of the writer Remy de Gourmont, buried there in 1915.
Remy de GourmontWho sculpted Chopin's tomb?
Auguste Clésinger, in 1850. The year before, he had taken the composer's death mask. His monument in Division 11 — the muse Euterpe weeping over a broken lyre — is one of the most flowered graves in the cemetery.
Frédéric Chopin, Division 11Was Clésinger George Sand's son-in-law?
Yes, he married Solange, George Sand's daughter, in 1847. The marriage was short and disastrous: it set the novelist against Chopin for good, since he had taken Solange's side, and, divorce being illegal in France at the time, a judicial separation was pronounced against him in 1852.
Alfred de MussetWhy did the Woman Bitten by a Snake cause a scandal?
Because the pose read as erotic rather than agonised, because the model Apollonie Sabatier was recognisable to all Paris, and because Clésinger was suspected of having cast the body from life instead of carving it.
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