Lot Essay
As was first pointed out by Dr. Ursula Schlegel, who published these two statuettes (op. cit., 1969, p. 392, fig. 3), there is no reason to doubt that they were designed by Duquesnoy. He was known as 'il fattore di putti', and the entirely characteristic children here are tantamount to a signature. The two bronzes were clearly a pair, and other pendants by Duquesnoy, such as the Laughing and the Weeping Child, and the Youthful Christ and the Madonna, underline the artist's predeliction for comparable arrangements.
As a pair, these statuettes of adult male gods with divine children represent a unique survival. For whereas the figure of Jupiter - identified by the thunderbolt in his left hand - with the Infant Bacchus is known in a number of versions, and notably through one in Berlin in which only the child is gilded (Schlegel, 1978, loc.cit.), the second figure is otherwise unrecorded. Previously identified as Mercury with the Infant Bacchus, it must in fact represent Apollo, armed with his attribute, a quiver, in which case the child is in all probability Cupid. Another pair of statuettes by Duquesnoy, datable to the 1630s, of which the finest surviving example is in the Liechtenstein Collection, shows Apollo teaching Cupid to string a bow, and Mercury with Cupid tying on his winged sandals (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Liechtenstein - The Princely Collections, Oct. 26 1985 - May 1 1986, pp. 79-83, nos. 49-50, illustrated [entry by O. Raggio]). This may explain the confusion over the identification of the figures in the second of the groups under consideration here. Schlegel has argued convincingly that the statuettes must have been executed after Duquesnoy had restored the Rondanini Faun, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Girardon Bacchus, now in the Louvre. The date of these restorations is not known, but stylistic comparison with other works by Duquesnoy, such as the Vryburch and Van der Eynde monuments, both in Santa Maria dell'Anima, Rome, supports the notion of a date in the sculptor's early Roman years, perhaps towards the end of the 1620s.
Bellori records that Duquesnoy was adept at cleaning and chasing his own productions in silver and other metals, so it is not inconceivable that the finishing of the pair was his own work, or at the very least executed under his supervision.
As a pair, these statuettes of adult male gods with divine children represent a unique survival. For whereas the figure of Jupiter - identified by the thunderbolt in his left hand - with the Infant Bacchus is known in a number of versions, and notably through one in Berlin in which only the child is gilded (Schlegel, 1978, loc.cit.), the second figure is otherwise unrecorded. Previously identified as Mercury with the Infant Bacchus, it must in fact represent Apollo, armed with his attribute, a quiver, in which case the child is in all probability Cupid. Another pair of statuettes by Duquesnoy, datable to the 1630s, of which the finest surviving example is in the Liechtenstein Collection, shows Apollo teaching Cupid to string a bow, and Mercury with Cupid tying on his winged sandals (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Liechtenstein - The Princely Collections, Oct. 26 1985 - May 1 1986, pp. 79-83, nos. 49-50, illustrated [entry by O. Raggio]). This may explain the confusion over the identification of the figures in the second of the groups under consideration here. Schlegel has argued convincingly that the statuettes must have been executed after Duquesnoy had restored the Rondanini Faun, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Girardon Bacchus, now in the Louvre. The date of these restorations is not known, but stylistic comparison with other works by Duquesnoy, such as the Vryburch and Van der Eynde monuments, both in Santa Maria dell'Anima, Rome, supports the notion of a date in the sculptor's early Roman years, perhaps towards the end of the 1620s.
Bellori records that Duquesnoy was adept at cleaning and chasing his own productions in silver and other metals, so it is not inconceivable that the finishing of the pair was his own work, or at the very least executed under his supervision.