Year 1869 | Type Sculpture Created 1869 | |
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Dimensions 70 cm × 67 cm × 44 cm (28 in × 26 in × 17 in) Similar Neapolitan fisherboy, Ugolin entouré de ses quatr, La Danse, Ugolino and His Sons, Allegory of Science | ||
L'Amour à la folie (Love to madness) is an 1869 sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, part of the sculptural group "La Danse" for the Paris Opera Garnier, and commissioned architect Charles Garnier. The Musee d'Orsay in Paris holds a terracotta edition (RF 2928), the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City holds both a terracotta and a bronze (Inv.° 274) and the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon holds an edition in marble (Inv.° 563).
Henry James wrote of the sculpture group in The New York Tribune in 1875:
Carpeaux was made famous by the extraordinary group of "La Danse," which he contributed to the decoration of the new Opera. Every visitor to Paris has gazed at it in mingled admiration and perplexity, and it is a work which, so long as it stands there, will be sure to have gazers enough. If the whole building is characteristic of its time and place, Carpeaux's group is its most characteristic feature.