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Lot Essay
With their lions-paw feet, lambrequinned edge, Bérainesque mask and jolie sphinx, these chenets are inspired by Régence prototypes. Popular as much for its association with the exotic goût Egyptienne, the half-woman and half-lion figures appeared for example in the gardens at Versailles which were collaboratively designed by Andreé Le Nôtre (d. 1700), Louis Le Vau (d. 1670) and Charles Le Brun (d. 1690). Comparable chenets from circa 1700 to 1710 include that with a reclining sphinx in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, vol. 1, fig. 1.10.10), and three further examples with Bérainesque masks and paw feet (ibid, fig. 1.10.2-4).
Influential publications by the likes of Benoît de Mailleet (d. 1738), the French Consul-General in Egypt, who produced his Description de l'Égypte in 1735, Paul Lucas (d. 1737), who explored Saqqara and published his Voyage fait en 1717 in 1720, and the comprehensive ten volumes of L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures by Berhard de Mountfaucon (d. 1741) which included drawings of sphinxes, all served to disseminate the taste for the goût Egyptienne.
The sphinx also conveyed connotations of Greco-Roman mythology. Certainly the standing figures of Minerva, which are closely related to the bronze Minerva by Alessadro Vittoria (d. 1608) in the Robert S. Smith collection (A. Radcliffe, The Robert H. Smith Collection: Bronzes 1500-1650), would remind one of the Riddle of the Sphinx which Oedipus answered, saving Thebes from the creature's siege.
Influential publications by the likes of Benoît de Mailleet (d. 1738), the French Consul-General in Egypt, who produced his Description de l'Égypte in 1735, Paul Lucas (d. 1737), who explored Saqqara and published his Voyage fait en 1717 in 1720, and the comprehensive ten volumes of L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures by Berhard de Mountfaucon (d. 1741) which included drawings of sphinxes, all served to disseminate the taste for the goût Egyptienne.
The sphinx also conveyed connotations of Greco-Roman mythology. Certainly the standing figures of Minerva, which are closely related to the bronze Minerva by Alessadro Vittoria (d. 1608) in the Robert S. Smith collection (A. Radcliffe, The Robert H. Smith Collection: Bronzes 1500-1650), would remind one of the Riddle of the Sphinx which Oedipus answered, saving Thebes from the creature's siege.