Larche, Raoul(-Francois)
(b Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac, Gironde, 22 Oct 1860; d Paris, 2 June 1912).

French sculptor. The son of an ornamental sculptor, Larche entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1878. His teachers there were Francois Jouffroy, Eugene Delaplanche and Alexandre Falguiere. He worked in most branches of sculpture but specialized in that of the 'art-edition'. The founders Siot-Decauville cast many of his statuettes and objets d'art such as vases, ashtrays and lamps. His statuette of Loie Fuller is the most famous of these editions, and her swirling drapery epitomizes the Art Nouveau style of Larche's sculpture. The Sevres factory also reproduced his work in porcelain. Whether mythological, pastoral or religious, Larche's subject-matter was frequently sentimental. He executed large statues of Joan of Arc (marble; Paris, La Madeleine) and St Anthony (stone; Paris, St Antoine) and undertook a small number of decorative sculptures for Parisian facades, notably for the Grand Palais (1900). His output in all branches of sculpture other than the 'art-edition' was modest, though he entered several competitions for monuments, winning the commissions for those to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1909) and Jean-Simeon Chardin (1911) as part of a decorative scheme for the Place du Carrousel in Paris. Larche's design for a decorative basin entitled The Seine and its Affluents (plaster version, exh. Salon 1910) was intended for the same site, but this work (perhaps his most famous) was eventually placed near the Grand Palais after being shown there at the retrospective exhibition of his work in 1920.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lami
H. Berman: Bronzes, Sculptors and Founders, 1800--1930, 4 vols (Chicago, 1974--80), i/379, 566; ii/813, 1569; iii/2144, 2292; iv/3340, 4404, 4408
De Carpeaux a Matisse: La Sculpture francaise de 1850 a 1914 dans les musees et les collections publiques du nord de la France (exh. cat., Calais, Mus. B.-A., 1982), pp. 235--6
G. Bresc and A. Pingeot: Sculptures des jardins du Louvre, du Carrousel et des Tuileries, ii (Paris, 1986), pp. 250--56
D. Renoux: Raoul Larche statuaire (memoire de maitrise, U. Bordeaux III, 1986)

PENELOPE CURTIS

Autres biographies