Lot Essay
Other examples of the present group, including one in the Wallace Collection (Mann, loc. cit.), are known. The fact that the piece was known and admired is underlined by the existence of an ivory version by Leonhard Kern in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Grünenwald, loc. cit.). Weihrauch (loc. cit.) attributed the group to the artist he called the Master of the Genre Figures, and the majority of the small bronzes he assembled under that heading are now ascribed to the French sculptor Barthélemy Prieur. It remains unclear whether the intention was to represent a scene from history or mythology (Diana and Callisto has been suggested, but is not convincing), or to show a genre subject. In either case, no exact parallels for the representation are known.