A PAIR OF SÈVRES GROUPS LES GOURMANDS OU ENFANTS BUVEURS DE LAIT AND LES FRIANDS OU LA MARCHANDE DE MACARONS

Details

A PAIR OF SÈVRES GROUPS LES GOURMANDS OU ENFANTS BUVEURS DE LAIT AND LES FRIANDS OU LA MARCHANDE DE MACARONS
LATE 18TH CENTURY, THE SECOND WITH INCISED B TO BASE

The first with a boy drinking milk from a bowl, another asking for some with a hedgehog in a box and a basket of fruit at their feet; the second as a girl with a sheet of sweets leaning on a basket, preventing a small boy from having them, the base applied with pastries (chip to sleeve and handle of basket lacking on the first; minor repair to her headdress)--about7in. (18cm.) high (2)

Literature

Ruth Berges "Soft-paste biscuit figures of Vincennes and Sèvres", The Connoisseur, November 1967, fig. 5 for the second

Lot Essay

First modelled by Falconet after Boucher in 1759
Les Buveurs de lait is taken in the reverse from an engraving by Jean Dauleé after Boucher, see Pierrette Jean-Richard L'Oeuvre gravé de François Boucher, no. 581.

Other examples of this model are in the Wrightsman collection, Dauterman, pl. 121 and formerly in the Sainsbury collection.