Benoit Rougelet was a pupil of the sculptor Francisque-Joseph Duret. He began exhibiting at the Salon in 1876 and received a number of public commissions. He is particularly known for his playful groups of putti, as well as sensuous female nudes, of which the present marble of a young woman with her cat is a fine example. The model can almost certainly be identified as Le fil rompu, which Rougelet exhibited at the Salons of 1885 and 1887.
RELATED LITERATURE
S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française au dix-neuvième siecle, Paris, 1921, reprint 1970, vol. 4, p. 193