Charles-Alphonse-Achille Guméry[1] (14 June 1827 – 19 January 1871[2]) was a French sculptor working in an academic realist manner inParis. Several of his figures ornament theOpéra Garnier most notoriously the groupLa Danse, which was commissioned from him after the group byJean-Baptiste Carpeaux was found unacceptable.
Though he was born in thequartier of Vaugirard in Paris, Charles Guméry was from a middle-classSavoyard family established by his father atPassy.His father, Nicolas Guméry, was a schoolteacher.[3]
A student ofArmand Toussaint (1806–1862)[4] at theÉcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in 1850 he received thePrix de Rome, thesine qua non for an official career as a French sculptor. He became a prominent sculptor of theSecond Empire, who was awarded theLegion d'Honneur, 29 June 1867.
When, on the morning of 29 August 1869 it was discovered that ink had been thrown overJean-Baptiste Carpeaux' marbleLa Danse in the façade of theOpéra Garnier, it was thought to have been a scandalized gesture by a member of the public because of the nudity of Carpeaux' figures.Charles Garnier, who had already commissioned from Gumery two gilded groups for the cornice of the Palais Garnier, asked Gumery to sculpt a replacement figure ofLa Danse to replace the disfigured Carpeaux group. With theFranco-Prussian War of the following year, followed by theParis Commune, during which Gumery died in Paris under obscure circumstances during the privations of theSiege of Paris, when many starved, and then the death of Carpeaux in 1875, the scandal was forgotten: the Carpeaux group remained in place and Gumery'sLa Danse is conserved in theMusée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers.[5]
Gumery is buried in theCimetière de Montmartre, where his gravestone is surmounted by a bust sculpted by his pupilJean Gautherin.
His work inParis includes :
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