FRENCH, FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF BRONZE GROUPS DEPICTING THE RAPE OF EUROPA AND NESSUS AND DEIANIRA
French, first half 18th century
Each group on an integral rectangular naturalistic bronze plinth and a later rectangular yellow marble base.
Warm reddish brown patina and lighter high points; minor repairs; minor chips to the marble bases.
9½ and 8¼ in. (24.2 and 21 cm.) high
12¼ and 10½ in. (31.1 and 26.7 cm.) high, overall (2)

Literature

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
W. Holzhausen, Die Bronzen Augusts des Starken in Dresden, Jahrbuch der königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, Berlin, LX, Heft 2, 1939, p.182.
H. Weihrauch, Europäische Bronzestatuetten - 15.-18. Jahrhundert, Brunswick, 1967, p. 410, fig. 494.
New York, Knoedler & Co, The French Bronze 1500 to 1800, 6-27 November, 1968, no. 28.

Lot Essay

A number of versions, of varying quality, of the present two bronzes exist, but they have successfully escaped any attempts at a firm attribution. They are first recorded as a pair in 1699, when Baron Le Plat purchased two other examples for Augustus the Strong of Saxony (Holzhausen, loc. cit.). They remain in the collection of the Grunes Gewölbe in Dresden. Another pair exists in the National Museum in Stockholm (NM Sk 338 and 339), and examples of one or the other bronze are represented in other national collections.

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