FRENCH, LATE 18TH OR EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The origins of the model offered here have been a matter of debate since the first known group was offered for sale in 1777 with an attribution to the French sculptors Joseph and Ignatius Broche. Two subsequent marble versions were also attributed to Jean-Antoine Houdon and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, the latter having one version recorded in a 1919 inventory of the Chouvaloff Collection, St. Petersburg. The most favoured attribution to date, however, has been to Pierre-Philippe Thomire, who displayed a bronze version of the group most probably modelled after a marble group thought to be of his conception, at the Salon de la Correspondence in 1781.

Unfortunately, modern scholarship has not yet identified a definite author for the present model, but the fact that it has been attributed to, and reproduced by, so many masters of late 18th century French art is an indication that its charming subject matter and fine modelling appealed to a wide variety of tastes at the time.