Charles William Ayton (1865-1956) American/French, Carved Marble Female Bust. Cream marble figure with delicate features and her hair done up, and a rough-hewn base that her clavicle, back, and shoulders disappear down into. Signed and dated "C.W. Ayton Paris 1902." 

Size: 15 x 10 1/2 x 17 in. 

Charles William Ayton (frequently signed as C. W. Ayton) was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1865. In his teens he discovered a love of art and was one of the first students of the St. Louis Art Academy. He traveled to Paris, France, where he studied at the Julien Academy under Earnest Dubois as well as at the Beaux Arts and St. Gaudins. He focused on sculpture, primarily creating marble busts that were exhibited in the Paris Salon as well as the American Art Association of Paris, and won him a bronze medal when he briefly returned to the United States for the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. Throughout the First World War he remained in France producing commissions including a marble monument to Lafayette that still stands before the barracks of the regiment at Pau, but he fled growing unrest in Europe in 1938 to settle in Miami, Florida, where he died on January 20th, 1956.

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