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Lot Essay
Like his master Clodion, Joseph-Charles Marin was celebrated for his 18th and early 19th century lyrical, small-scale, sculpture. His rococo-inspired models of agile nymphs, rapacious satyrs and Parisian gentry were indicative of a taste for the exuberant and playful at the same time.
While sculptures such as the present lot had clear Clodionesque traits, Marin strove to improve on his master's prototypes by introducing a greater degree of realism to his figures and also by paying attention to smaller details, especially in the drapery and hair. This attention to detail resulted in Marin becoming very popular within Parisian collecting circles and saw his works exhibited in the Salons and in the private town-houses of the day.
The present pair are comparable to the 1793 group of the Bacchante couchée in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, where one can see the same fastidious treatment of the hair with intertwined vine leaves and grapes. While the faces of the bacchantes in both groups are of a generic type, one can see the way in which Marin has not opted for the classical Clodionesque features, with aquiline nose and the child-like cheeks, but for the more wholesome womanly features - playful, but altogether more mature.
While sculptures such as the present lot had clear Clodionesque traits, Marin strove to improve on his master's prototypes by introducing a greater degree of realism to his figures and also by paying attention to smaller details, especially in the drapery and hair. This attention to detail resulted in Marin becoming very popular within Parisian collecting circles and saw his works exhibited in the Salons and in the private town-houses of the day.
The present pair are comparable to the 1793 group of the Bacchante couchée in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, where one can see the same fastidious treatment of the hair with intertwined vine leaves and grapes. While the faces of the bacchantes in both groups are of a generic type, one can see the way in which Marin has not opted for the classical Clodionesque features, with aquiline nose and the child-like cheeks, but for the more wholesome womanly features - playful, but altogether more mature.