At the 1847 Salon, he created a sensation with his Woman Bitten by a Serpent, produced from life-casts from his model Apollonie Sabatier (the pose being particularly suitable for such a method), thus reinforcing the scandal with an erotic dimension.

The sculpture's beauty was praised by Théophile Gautier: Clésinger has resolved this problem of making beauty without cuteness, without affectation, without mannerism, with a head and a body of our own time, in which can be recognised his mistress if she is beautiful.Clésinger also portrayed Sabatier as herself, in an 1847 marble sculpture now in the Musée d'Orsay.

He produced busts of Rachel Félix and of Théophile Gautier, and a statue of Louise of Savoy (now in the Jardin du Luxembourg).

He also sculpted, in 1850, the white marble funerary monument of Euterpe, the muse of music, for Chopin's grave at the Père Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris.

He produced life-size statues for the side chapels of the Église de la Madeleine in Besançon, of the Via Dolorosa, the Pietà, the Entombment, the Resurrection and ascension.