Biography

French sculptor and medallist. After training with his father the medallist Jean-Jacques Barré and with Jean-Pierre Cortot, he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1826. He was one of the few 19th-century French sculptors who pursued a successful official career without having competed for the Prix de Rome. He was principally a portrait sculptor and exhibited at the Salon from 1831 to 1886, initially showing medals and medallions such as the series of the Orléans Family (Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs). With Jean-Etienne Chaponnière he was one of the first French sculptors to produce miniature portraits of eminent contemporaries in plaster, biscuit or bronze editions for broad popular circulation, showing figures ranging from Queen Victoria to the dancer Marie Taglioni (both 1837; e.g. in bronze, Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs).

Barre was one of the most successful French portrait sculptors in the 19th century.