Rare bronze La Baigneuse by Charles Brunin

Rare period model. The bronze is beautifully chased, probably by compagnie des bronzes de Bruxelles.
In the 1870s, there were no Compagnie des Bronzes stamps or marks.
Charles Brunin was the son of Eugène Victor Joseph Brunin and Caroline Claire Dandoy.
He studied at the Mons Academy with étienne Wauquière, at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp with Joseph Geefs (1865-1869) and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels (1869-1870, 1872-1873) with Eugène Simonis.
In 1869, he competed for the Prix de Rome, which he did not win. However, he was able to travel to Rome thanks to subsidies from the city of Mons. His stay in Italy inspired him to create several Italian folk types.
Brunin sculpted busts, figures, war memorials and portraits. He made his debut as an exhibitor in September 1871, at the Amsterdam Exhibition of Living Masters, and a week later at the Ghent Salon. He also took part in the Brussels Salons, the Universal Exhibitions of 1878 in Paris and 1880 in Brussels, and the Exposition Universelle Coloniale et d'Exportation Générale in Amsterdam. In 1872, he exhibited a marble bust of a Milanese woman at the Brussels Salon. A scandal erupted when the work was bought by a member of the jury instead of the state.

His marble work Les pigeons de Saint-Marc was purchased by the King at the 1875 Brussels Salon, and a bronze copy entered the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in 1893.
In 1879, he won a commission for a monumental vase behind the Parliament building in Brussels.
Brunin's work was honored at the 1879 World's Fair in Sydney and at the Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition in Adelaide.
From 1873 to 1882, Brunin taught at the Académie de Mons. In 1879, he married Marie Pauline Ernestine Clays, daughter of marine painter Paul-Jean Clays. In 1882, the couple moved back to Brussels.