A LOUIS XVI GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF A SLEEPING NYMPH, holding a rose and reclining against a tree-stump on a rocky outcrop, on a moulded beaded rectangular spreading plinth with re-entrant corners

Details

A LOUIS XVI GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF A SLEEPING NYMPH, holding a rose and reclining against a tree-stump on a rocky outcrop, on a moulded beaded rectangular spreading plinth with re-entrant corners
8¾in. (22cm.) wide; 5¾in. (14.5cm.) high

Provenance

Sir Philip Sassoon, Bt., 25 Park Lane, W.1, recorded in the Library in the pre-1927 inventory

Exhibited

London, 25 Park Lane, W.1., Three French Reigns, February 21 - April 5 1933, no. 535, when it is illustrated on the bureau à cylindre in the 1933 photograph of the Salon (Catalogue, p. 74)

Lot Essay

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
M. Knoedler & Co., 'The French Bronze 1500-1800', Exhibition Catalogue, New York, 6-27 November, 1968, no. 69
G. Levitine, The Sculpture of Falconet, trans. E. M. Levitine, Greenwich, 1972, figs. 20, 21, 48, & 70

When the present bronze was exhibited in the 1933 exhibition of Three French Reigns, it was described as being by 'Falconet' (sic). This attribution was undoubtedly based on stylistic similarities with several known works by the artist, including his celebrated Bather of 1757 which, it has been said, displayed a 'voluptuously mannered elegance' (G. Levitine, op. cit., fig. 20, 21).

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