LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

THREE MINIATURE WAX SCULPTURES
LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY
Comprising: a high relief bust of the Dying Cleopatra, believed to be by Isaac Gosset, unsigned, on red velvet backplate and oval wood frame -- the wax - 2 7/8in. (7.5cm.) high; a relief statuette of a classical figure, believded to be by Flaxman, on a painted ground, 3½in. (9cm.) high; and a bust in the round of a man with glass eyes, probably Neapolitan, 4in. (10cm.) high (3)

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Lot Essay

In The Connoisseur, March 1910, 'Mr Lewis Harcourt's Collection of Waxes' by Percy Bate, the author writes 'attention may be directed to two specimens which are attributed to Flaxman (a lovely oval, Judgement of Paris, full of the classic purity which marks all the work of that great modeller, and a head of Cleopatra Dying)'. However Mary Bate's typed label for the Cleopatra is now attributed to Gosset although she keeps Flaxman as the probable sculptor of 'The Draped Figure' which may or might not be the 'Judgement of Paris' from the earlier Connoisseur article. Mary-Anne Flaxman, a half sister to John Flaxman, is recorded as being a modeller in wax and a painter. This provides a third alternative as to the origin of the classical figure.

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